Haruhi Helps Crack a 25-Year-Old Mathematical Conundrum | Interest - Anime News Network

There's a long standing fan argument of the correct way to watch The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, as Anime News Network reports.

When the first anime season premiered on TV, the episodes were not shown in chronological order. The anime was then released on home video but with the episodes rearranged sequentially. The original episode order added an element of mystery to a series that already includes ESPers, time-travelers, and aliens. Given the supernatural events taking place left and right, there's an argument to be made about which episode order is more "correct."

A poster on 4chan's science message board posited a simple question in 2011, "which way is the most efficient way to watch every possible order of The Melancholy on Haruhi Suzumiya's 14 episodes?" No one expected the answer to have real-life applications outside of anime fandom, much less help crack a conundrum that's stumped mathematicians for the last 25 years.

Computer scientist and mathematician Robin Houston discovered the question on the Math and Science wikia page and tweeted about it on Tuesday. An anonymous 4chan poster had offered a solution to the question and inadvertently also helped solve part of a mathematical equation focusing on superpermutations...

Professional mathematicians have double-checked the anonymous poster's work and it checks out. Marquette University's Jay Pantone offered up a rewrite of the answer's proof for other mathematicians.  
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Source: Anime News Network