[Edu-sig] A Quick Puzzle

[Scott David Daniels]

Tim Peters wrote:
> That vaguely reminds me of a puzzle I enjoyed much as a kid:  on what
> day will you be half as old as your father?  a third as old?  a
> quarter as old?  three-quarters as old?  nine-tenths as old?  ... It's
> a good way of showing that x/(x+d), for fixed positive d, approaches 1
> from the left as x goes to infinity.  Unfortunately, my own father
> died before I became twice as old as him ;-)

I called my father up within an hour of when he was twice as old as I.
I was expecting a real "you are such a dweeb" conversation, but he wound
up talking a lot about what it felt like when I was born.  It was such a
wonderful surprise; a great conversation for both of us.

-- Scott David Daniels
Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org