mathematical models

[cph@martigny.ai.mit.edu (Chris Hanson)]

   From: Guillermo J. Rozas <gjr@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
   Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 18:28:17 -0400

   |   My question is, what was the length of the loop?

   If I recall correctly, we did not determine that -- I don't think that
   we let it go far enough.  However, the few instances that we examined
   were correct "permutations" of each other, so yes, it should have
   cycled eventually, but I seem to recall that the number of actual
   choices was non negligible.  It is conceivable that it would
   eventually have settled into a cycle of length 1, but we never found
   out -- I guess we weren't curious enough (besides the fact that at the
   time recompiling the whole system took considerable time).

   Chris may remember better than I do.

I don't remember any better; I wasn't interested in the problem,
except to eliminate the loop.  At the time, we had a lot of other bugs
to fry, and it was a distraction.