HalfConBot

Among my many talents (just ask my wife!), I am an amateur musician, a boater, and a halfbaker.

Common to these interests is the occasional (or regular) desirability/necessity of meeting with those of similar inclination. But in this regard, I have been struggling for over 30 years with a nearly intractible problem.

Most of you will recognize the immense difficulty of scheduling a time for a random collection of similarly interested persons to meet.

I first recognized this about 1974, and proposed that the probability of getting (n) people together at an arbitrary time/location is a function of [1/n!] where [n!] is n factorial, e.g. for n= 7, n! = 7x6x5x4x3x2x1= 5040, so 1/7! is about 0.0002.

Much easier with only 4 in the intended group: 4! = 4x3x2x1 = 24, so 1/4! is about 1/24 or ~0.04.

The recent effort to mount a N.A.W.C.H. [link] is a great example, where n is unknown. Lots of annos have been posted, and a spinoff HalfCon actually occurred, albeit with n=2. [1/2! = 0.5, pretty good odds!] Pity the poor soul who would have to make sense of all the annotations, e.g.:

(Yes, I could make it, but only on alternate Tuesdays, if my brother-in-law decides not to have an appendectomy.) - And other feeble excuses!

So I propose a computer program which can search through appropriate/suitable annotations to find the most workable date/location for the largest practical number of halfbakers, based on annotative responses. Questionable participants could be queried by sending email requesting confirmation of availability.