Devon wrote: > I've heard it stated that the average 4th grader of today > is probably better at arithmetic than Leonardo Da Vinci > ever was.
> This seems plausible given the far better tools we now have. Those tools are due in large part, I am certain, to the relative performance advantages of walnut over mahogany abacuses in 16th century Italy. I understand the smoothness of the walnut beads increased performance so much that the time to calculate the 20th prime using the naive Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm was reduced from an hour to 54 minutes! Of course, everyone knows that mahogany beads last longer, increasing total ROI. -Dan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
