[tjbai]

> The multi-armed bandit is a really interesting problem in mathematical optimization... This problem is so interesting, in fact, that during World War II the Allies proposed air dropping copies of the original paper over Germany. The end result, or so it was theorized, was that German scientists would be so fascinated and distracted by the problem that they would abandon the war effort and cripple any German military research projects in the process.

This is incredible

[lijok]

I heard something similar about the collatz conjecture that it was pushed/popularized by soviets to distract western development

[saithound]

It's so incredible you should not believe it.

Multi-armed bandits were introduced in the 50s, years after the end of World War 2.

[_peeley]

Pulling from this published source[0]:

> As I said, the problem is a classic one; it was formulated during the war, and efforts to solve it so sapped the energies and minds of Allied analysts that the suggestion was made that the problem be dropped over Germany, as the ultimate instrument of intellectual sabotage.

[0]: https://academic.oup.com/jrsssb/article-pdf/41/2/164/4909740...

[bavell]

Wait, they actually tried nerd sniping[0]?!?

[0] https://xkcd.com/356

[kreetx]

I would say "citation needed". Who said it? Where?

[RheingoldRiver]

Yeah, by far the highlight of the article for me. In the very abstract, the idea to stop destruction by inspiring creativity is kinda beautiful

[chrisco255]

Sounds like an impractical (and ineffective) idea that was never implemented, so not actually all that incredible. Rather boring, inconsequential anecdote that adds nothing to the discussion.

[tjbai]

Something can be inconsequential and yet still interesting/amusing

[chrisco255]

Is it amusing that someone suggested an impractical and ineffective idea once? There are billions more where that came from.