Shit I hope so

Actually it is 3am now due to the time change, **** that

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math debater

I guess it would be where you are, lol. Go to bed night owl. Night is still young here on the West/Best Coast.

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FOR CAIN: If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.--Lao-Tzu

Haven't yet prepared Ye Old NyQuil cocktail and not enough rum to be significantly tired, so soon Indi soon

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math debater

This problem is actually easier than the first because it is easier to justify the answer

Since links can be exchanged, all you need to do is cut the chain until the sum of any of the smaller chains totals any number between the smallest number of cuts and 123. So basically just halve the chain continuously until you have a length that can be cut in some way such that the cut links and the chain segments add up to the next highest chain size. So the answer is 4 cuts

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math debater

Yep. That's right, its 4 cuts. I figured it slightly differently, tho. More complicated than your explanation, tho I also used the fact its a counting problem where you have to be able to come up with all the combinations of # of links you would give up to 123.

Did you figure out where to cut the chain? And what the 'cutoffs' are for the min # of cuts? I.e. what length of chain would require 5, not 4, cuts? Figuring out the general rule for any length of chain is a bit more complicated.

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FOR CAIN: If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.--Lao-Tzu

I didn't find the general rule, it would entail some basic algebraic manipulations but isn't worth it for the problem

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math debater

You know what bothers me? The failure on behalf of certain students in my bio and chem labs to recognize the real science behind things. For instance Indi you'll be familiar with this, DNA sequencing using the Sanger method. The concept is ridiculously fuccking easy once you already have the materials. The REAL science is synthesizing the ddNTPs, purification of DNA ligase, tagging primers, etc. THAT must be much more difficult than the conceptual basis of DNA sequencing GIVEN you already have those... gah

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math debater

speaking of science.. i hated biochem... interesting, but freaking difficult.

raverboy

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...this is just my perspective on the situation...

When did you take biochem

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math debater

All the mind numbing math I have taken...I HAVE to use "X" and "Y" for everything or I get angry...ANGRY I TELL YA! what is this S and N bs?

Anyways, Place your picture on a 2-dimensional graph.

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Kocham Śmierć bo tylko ona na mnie czeka.

Whatever floats your boat

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math debater

LOL, yes I remember. In fact, I'm one of those dinosaurs that used to run the huge PAC gels & read the sequence myself after exposing it to film. The ABI capillary sequencers w/the fluorochromes only started being developed while I was a grad student & the machines were horrifically expensive. Now, we're in an age of rapid sequencing of entire genomes for ~300K.

Its easy to be dismissive of the technique, but Sanger (and Gilbert and those guys) were brilliant to figure it out int he first place. The REAL science comes from an understanding of the chemistry of the nucleic acids & figuring out how to manipulate them. What's disturbing is the lack of basic knowledge that so many biology grads are coming out with nowadays. Its like ppl who use computers but don't have a clue how they actually work.

If you are into this stuff, you might want to look up nucleic acid selection techniques that make use of sulfur(thiol)-mercury interactions. Kinda cool, IMO.

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FOR CAIN: If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.--Lao-Tzu

Its for when you are describing sequences & series, OV. Its usually covered in first year calc as you start to learn about limits & convergence tests & that sort of thing.

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FOR CAIN: If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.--Lao-Tzu

Yeah I don't know shit about how mercury is regards to that. All I know of is its use in some organic syntheses

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math debater

You can use a mercury containing gel to pull out thiol-linked small molecules, including nucleic acids. Its way cool, DM.

But only someone w/a good knowledge of chemistry could have figured out the method.

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FOR CAIN: If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.--Lao-Tzu