fair. i just don't like to skip so i do whatever the system offers me so i get the mindset aspect of it and i've spent some time solving this problem. but the problem itself feels really pointless because there's no context to any real life example and i doubt anyone outside of science will ever see it

I would say that this problem is very good for programmers, because it can teach a couple of valuable lessons:

• it is important to perform problem analysis before jumping right to coding,
• problems with seemingly simple requirements can be difficult to solve,
• problems which are seemingly difficult to solve can have unexpectedly simple solutions,
• reading documentation helps a lot (this challenge is literally tagged as MATHEMATICS, and people can check the tags and just choose to skip it).

Programming is not just about ifs and loops and variables. Thinking and analysis and research are important parts too.

i wish people could stop posting math problems that are irrelevant to 99,99% of programmers