this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
9 points (73.7% liked)

Ask Science

17478 readers
87 users here now

Ask a science question, get a science answer.


Community Rules


Rule 1: Be respectful and inclusive.Treat others with respect, and maintain a positive atmosphere.


Rule 2: No harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or trolling.Avoid any form of harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or offensive behavior.


Rule 3: Engage in constructive discussions.Contribute to meaningful and constructive discussions that enhance scientific understanding.


Rule 4: No AI-generated answers.Strictly prohibit the use of AI-generated answers. Providing answers generated by AI systems is not allowed and may result in a ban.


Rule 5: Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.Adhere to community guidelines and comply with instructions given by moderators.


Rule 6: Use appropriate language and tone.Communicate using suitable language and maintain a professional and respectful tone.


Rule 7: Report violations.Report any violations of the community rules to the moderators for appropriate action.


Rule 8: Foster a continuous learning environment.Encourage a continuous learning environment where members can share knowledge and engage in scientific discussions.


Rule 9: Source required for answers.Provide credible sources for answers. Failure to include a source may result in the removal of the answer to ensure information reliability.


By adhering to these rules, we create a welcoming and informative environment where science-related questions receive accurate and credible answers. Thank you for your cooperation in making the Ask Science community a valuable resource for scientific knowledge.

We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.

For answers to historical questions, please check out our sister community: !askhistorians@lemmy.world


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hilbert imagines a hypothetical hotel with rooms numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on. The hotel is full and new guest arrives wanting a room. I can not move any guest. So i say to new guest wait 1 sec a new room must become available as Infinite guests one must leaving at any time.

is this good answer?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

No, because if you have a room empty, you now have to identify the vacated room, which could take an infinite amount of time

Also, it would take up to an infinite amount of distance to walk to or from the front desk, so we just be dealing with immortal guests who have no time sensitivity at all

Furthermore, the room must be made ready and guests tend to check out at a certain time of day, so you would have to decentralize everything while accounting for light speed limiting the speed of information

Some of these problems are solvable if you add more constraints to the puzzle. Like, if you have a rate of check-in to checkout you could do something with statistics and discrete math to divide the infinity into an infinite number of sub hotels, and in doing so possibly guarantee availability for the guest in a long but linear amount of time

It would be an interesting programming/math puzzle. My intuition tells me it is solvable, but it might not be

[–] RavenofDespair@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 1 points 28 minutes ago

I'm glad. It was an entertaining thought puzzle

I hope you keep asking interesting questions

[–] groet@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Those would all also a problem in the original and are never relevant. For the bus with infinite guests, every current guest has to move. So some of the now vacant rooms are infinitely far away and also none of them are ever prepared by staff etc.

The problem with OPs take is the wrong assumption that a room will be ensured to become available.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 1 points 16 minutes ago

I wouldn't call it a wrong assumption, it's just ambiguous. We don't know the constraints

An infinite hotel would need either infinite housecleaners or none at all, so it's a relatively minor part of the problem