Mice, or dice?

[Christian Lawson-Perfect]

The new sequence A392624 contains the word "mice" serval times. Should it be "dice" instead, or am I missing something? I couldn't see the word "mice" in any of the linked StackExchange threads.

[Christopher Landauer]

random weird comment - it seems that mice is one die, while dice is two

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 13, 2026, at 23:05, Christian Lawson-Perfect <christia...@gmail.com> wrote:



The new sequence A392624 contains the word "mice" serval times. Should it be "dice" instead, or am I missing something? I couldn't see the word "mice" in any of the linked StackExchange threads.

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[Robert McKone]

Hey Christian,

On A392624, “mice” appears to be intentional, not a typo for dice.  The entry defines the process as “n fair n-sided dice” with “n coordinating mice,” and the comments continue with “mice holding saved values do not reroll…”.  Even the sample code is named micedice.

The linked StackExchange references discuss the underlying dice/coupon-collector style process, but they do not use the OEIS author’s “mice” narrative, which is why you will not see the word there.

If we want to reduce confusion, we could suggest swapping “mice” for “players/rollers/agents” but as written it does not look erroneous to me.

However, if we do have a mice infestation, I do think it needs to be dealt with.  Otherwise we will never get rid of ‘em:

On Sat, 14 Feb 2026 at 18:05, Christian Lawson-Perfect <christia...@gmail.com> wrote:

The new sequence A392624 contains the word "mice" serval times. Should it be "dice" instead, or am I missing something? I couldn't see the word "mice" in any of the linked StackExchange threads.

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[Christian Lawson-Perfect]

That was my best guess at an interpretation too, Robert, but it's odd that there isn't a line in the comments making that explicit. 

I don't want it removed - it evokes a fun image - but it is confusing! 

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[Robin Houston]

I'm sure it *is* meant to be mice. I think the intended mental image is that each die is controlled by a different mouse, who can (in coordination with the other mice) stop rolling it.

If one changes ‘mice’ to ‘dice’, then it makes less sense rather than more.

This is corroborated by the following note on 

https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Natalia_L._Skirrow#my_sequences:

• A392624/A392625: n mice have one n-sided die each, and coordinate (rerolling all but one of each face's occurrences each turn), until every die is on a distinct face. a(n)/b(n) is the expected number of turns (starting from all dice on the same face).

On Sat, 14 Feb 2026 at 07:05, Christian Lawson-Perfect <christia...@gmail.com> wrote:

The new sequence A392624 contains the word "mice" serval times. Should it be "dice" instead, or am I missing something? I couldn't see the word "mice" in any of the linked StackExchange threads.

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[Robert McKone]

Mice = Player

I think.

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[Andras Ferencz]

As a New Yorker I can confirm that it is a shtick about exponential population growth.

Given that it is Valentine's Day, let's think about the romantic implications:

A mouse's gestation period typically lasts 19~21 days, 

their litters contain around 7~8 mice, 3~4 of which are female.

and the females can become pregnant again within 24 hours of giving birth. 

After a couple of generations, that is a lot of mice.

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