It has been interesting to read the discussion back and forth following my post. I do not have a degree in anything and failed abysmally at high school pure mathematics (applied mathematics I was good at as I could see a real-world use for what I was trying to learn) so my approach to the problem was purely empirical. I can't even qualify as an amateur mathematician as attempts to read the literature tell me that I don't understand the language being employed, I just hear a whoosh as it goes over my head.

However, I did very much enjoy writing the code and playing around with ideas so I'm grateful to tobyink for starting the thread!

The difference between pure and applied math is often only a century.

Much of discrete mathematics started with entertaining riddles, evolved to pure math and later became one cornerstone computer science.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice}