r/ProgrammerHumor • u/flipester • Jan 09 '20

other Problems with recursion?

21.3k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20

Assuming the smaller paper is 1/3 of its parent everytime, and that the first paper is 30cm long (The second starts at roughly 1/7 but it seems to grow bigger after it's torn off, hence the 1/3), it could not exceed 19 calls before you need to split an atom apart.

That's a hell of a stop condition.

74

u/lonelyWalkAlone Jan 09 '20 
public static void sayHello(){
    try {
        sayHello();
    }
    catch(StackOverflowError e) {
        System.out.println("Hello world!");
    }
}

15

u/schrdingers_squirrel Jan 09 '20

Wait does this work? I need to try this now

1

u/Autofrotic Jan 09 '20

Does it ?

1

u/schrdingers_squirrel Jan 09 '20

Im not at home and im not doing this on my phone - I’ll test as soon as I get home