It grows like this:
1
1+4
1+4+4*4
1+4+4*4+4*4*4
1+4+4*4+4*4*4+4*4*4*4
Can be written as:
4^0 + 4^1 + 4^2 + 4^3 + ... + 4^(x-1) + 4^x = 5 600 000 000
Log of a sum of unknown length is nasty stuff. Can't just take log of both sides of the equation seperately.
4^x = 5 600 000 000
Log base 4 from 5 600 000 000 = ln(5 600 000 000)/ln(4) = 16.2 (that's too much because the smaller terms are there too)
Look at the semantics of the opening post.
It's asked in entire hours, not minutes. Not told twice to a person means clean growth, not slow down by people telling it to persons already heard it. When everybody heard it, the sharing stops. The closest hour after that is the hour asked because the hour before, not everybody has heard it.
4^16 = 4.294.967.296
4^15 = 1.073.741.824
4^14 = 268.435.456
4^16 + 4^15 + 4^14 = 5637144576 the catch is the fact that the closest previous terms are too big to be ignored
4^16 + 4^15 + 4^14 + 4^13 + 4^12 + 4^11 = 5725224960
4^16 + 4^15 + ... + 4^1 + 4^0 = 5726623061
Or written elegantly:
x=16 means 8 hours and not 8.5.
Same end result as Thisisit. Interesting to see how he looked at the dots like an area under the curve and use integration.
