apparently, if you do the same calculation 186 times without indexing the input variables, the answer is always the same...

Wow!

Funny how that works...

It does that? Really? Odd...

Imma have to take your word on that

imagine doing 1 + 1 a hundred and eighty six times, instead of doing 1+1, 2+2, 3+3...187 + 187.

how long that took to spot.

bum

well, it only took two attempts to find it; analysis took only a couple of minutes. I just wasted a load of run-time because each iteration takes 2-3 mins. On the other hand the last week's effort has got the run-time down to that from 1-2 hrs/iteration!

So....what was the answer after 187 times? Was it correct? What is the probability that the answer would be different at least once after more than 187 tries?

actually, I'm still working on the bit that gives an exact answer, but it looks like, nearly two.