Grex Tutoring Conference

Item 14: Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, Trig, all that good stuff

Entered by toking on Mon Jun 30 14:50:14 1997:

65 new of 132 responses total.


#68 of 132 by drew on Thu Jul 17 15:58:26 1997:

Here we go again.

if sign(I)  then L(I)  else T(I).
if sign(II) then T(II) else L(II).

"This room contains a tiger" cannot go on door I, because this would
establish

(sign(I) AND T(I)) OR ( (NOT sign(I)) AND L(I))

which evaluates as FALSE. So this sign goes on the other door.

"Both rooms..." then goes on door I, and it can't be true, because
it would put a kitty in room I as well as II, violating the
"if sign(I) then L(I)" clause. So NOT sign(I), and the prisoner
doesn't have to end up as cat food.

However, since NOT sign(I), T(I). But fortunately, sign(II) isn't
true either which leads to L(II).


#69 of 132 by aruba on Thu Jul 17 17:45:13 1997:

Looks good, Drew, except that you need to invoke "process of elimination"
in the final sentence to draw the final conclusion.  As in: 

The fact that sign(I) is false implies both
        1) There is a tiger in Room I, and
        2) One of the rooms does not contain a tiger.
By process of elimination, Room II must contain a lady.  (Sign(II) doesn't
help you at all.)

Ok, then, it's on to

THE THIRD DAY

   "Confound it!" said the king.  "Again all the prisoners won!  I think
tomorrow I'll have *three* rooms instead of two; I'll put a lady in one
room and a tiger in each of the other two rooms.  Then we'll see how the
prisoners fare!"
   "Excellent idea!" replied the minister.
   "Your conversation, though flattering, is just a bit on the repetitious
side!" exclaimed the king.
   "Excellently put!" replied the minister.

The Ninth Trial

Well, on the third day, the king did as planned.  He offered three rooms
to choose from, and he explained to the prisoner that one room contained a
lady and the other two contained tigers.  Here are the three signs:


     I             II            III
  A TIGER        A LADY        A TIGER
   IS IN          IS IN         IS IN
 THIS ROOM      THIS ROOM      ROOM II

The king explained that at most one of the three signs was true.  Which
room contains the lady?


#70 of 132 by dang on Thu Jul 17 18:56:06 1997:

Signs II and III are mutually exclusive.  That is, if one is true, the other
must be false.  Therefore, one of them must be true, no matter what.  Since
at most one sign is true, then sign I must be false, and the Lady is in room
I.


#71 of 132 by aruba on Thu Jul 17 22:33:43 1997:

Hmmm...  The fact that "if one is true, the other must be false" does not
imply "one of them must be true".


#72 of 132 by i on Fri Jul 18 00:04:07 1997:

Yes, but I think dang has only mis-articulated his analysis.  II XOR III is
true, so I must be false (to avoid having 2 true signs).


#73 of 132 by dang on Fri Jul 18 19:59:59 1997:

Sure it does.  One sign must be true.  Hense, two signs must be false.  One
of those two signs, then, must be false.  If one of them is false, then the
other one is true.  Hense, one of those signs must be true, and sign I must
be false.


#74 of 132 by aruba on Fri Jul 18 22:23:33 1997:

It is in fact the case that if one of the two signs (II and III) is false, 
then the other must be true.  *That* is what you need to conclude that one of 
them must be true.  It's not enough to say that "if one is true, then the 
other is false", because that doesn't eliminate the possibility that they are
both false.  (And it's *not* the case that one sign must be true.  All we know
is that *at most one* of the signs is true.)

With that correction, though, dang's (and i's) solution is a very nice one.
I'll enter the next trial when i get home.


#75 of 132 by aruba on Sat Jul 19 07:58:15 1997:

The Tenth Trial

   Again there was only one lady and two tigers.  The king explained to
the prisoner that the sign on the door of the room containing the lady was
true, and that at least one of the other two signs was false. 
   Here are the signs:

    I                II             III
A TIGER IS       A TIGER IS      A TIGER IS
IN ROOM II      IN THIS ROOM     IN ROOM I

   What should the prisoner do?


#76 of 132 by remmers on Sat Jul 19 12:41:02 1997:

If the lady were in Room (II), then sign (II) would be false,
contradicting the fact that the sign on the room containing the
lady is true. Therefore, the lady is not in room (II).

If the lady were in room (III), then tigers would be in the
other two rooms, implying that signs (I) and (II) are both true,
contradicting the fact that at least one of the signs on the
tiger rooms is false. Therefore, the lady is not in room (III).

Hence the lady is in room (I). (Note that this implies that
sign (I) is true and sign (III) is false, consistent with the
king's preconditions.)


#77 of 132 by aruba on Sat Jul 19 16:19:29 1997:

Yes, John has put it very nicely.  On to The Eleventh Trial:

First, Second, and Third Choice

   In this more whimsical trial, the king explained to the prisoner that
one of the three rooms contained a lady, another a tiger, and the third
room was empty.  The sign on the door of the room containing the lady was
true, the sign on the door of the room with the tiger was false, and the
sign on the door of the empty room could be either true or false.  Here
are the signs: 

    I                 II              III
 ROOM III        THE TIGER IS      THIS ROOM
 IS EMPTY         IN ROOM I        IS EMPTY

   Now, the prisoner happened to know the lady in question and wished to
marry her.  Therefore, although the empty room was preferable to the one
with the tiger, his first choice was the room with the lady.
   Which room contains the lady, and which room contains the tiger?  If
you can answer these two questions, you should have little difficulty in
also determining which room is empty.


#78 of 132 by drew on Sat Jul 19 17:22:51 1997:

The lady can't be in room III, because this would make sign(III) false.

If she were in room II, this would put the cat in room I with sign(I) being
true.

So she has to go in room I, making sign(I) true and room III empty, leaving
the cat in room II.


#79 of 132 by aruba on Sun Jul 20 01:30:17 1997:

Very nice, Drew.  Ok, here's the grand finale:

THE FOURTH DAY

   "Horrible!" said the king.  "It seems I can't make my puzzles hard
enough to trap these fellows!  Well, we have only one more trial to go,
but this time I'll *really* give the prisoner a run for his money!"

A Logical Labyrinth

   Well, the king was as good as his word.  Instead of having three rooms
for the prisoner to choose from, he gave him nine!  As he explained, only
one room contained a lady; each of the other eight either contained a
tiger or was empty.  And, the king added, the sign on the door of the room
containing the lady is true; the signs on doors of all rooms containing
tigers are false; and the signs on doors of empty rooms can be either true
or false.
   Here are the signs:


     I                       II                     III
  THE LADY               THIS ROOM             EITHER SIGN V
  IS IN AN                IS EMPTY               IS RIGHT
ODD-NUMBERED                                    OR SIGN VII
    ROOM                                         IS WRONG

     IV                      V                      VI
   SIGN I              EITHER SIGN II            SIGN III
  IS WRONG               OR SIGN IV              IS WRONG
                          IS RIGHT

    VII                     VIII                    IX
  THE LADY               THIS ROOM               THIS ROOM
 IS NOT IN                CONTAINS               CONTAINS
   ROOM I                 A TIGER                 A TIGER
                        AND ROOM IX             AND SIGN VI
                          IS EMPTY               IS WRONG


   The prisoner studied the situation for a long while.
   "The problem is unsolvable!" he exclaimed angrily.  "That's not fair!"
   "I know," laughed the king.
   "Very funny!" replied the prisoner.  "Come on, now, at least give me a
decent clue: is Room Eight empty or not?"
   The king was decent enough to tell him whether Room VIII was empty or
not, and the prisoner was then able to deduce where the lady was.
   Which room contained the lady?


#80 of 132 by janc on Sun Jul 20 15:56:26 1997:

Ugh.  I got as far as figuring that if room VIII is not empty then the lady
is in room one or seven, but then I decided to get a life.


#81 of 132 by remmers on Sun Jul 20 16:56:31 1997:

(In order to "get a life", the prisoner's course of action would
have to be rather different from yours... :-)


#82 of 132 by drew on Sun Jul 20 18:24:12 1997:

In order for sign(VIII) to yield any useful information, it must be
ascertained to have some boolian value. Thus room VIII can't be empty.
It can't have the lady either, since sign(VIII) would have to be true, and
it would not be. So there's a kitty in room VIII. This is permitted by the
AND function in sign(VIII) so long as there is something in room IX.

Room IX also has to have a kitty, for similar reasons that room VIII does.
This makes sign(VI) *right* (true).

This of course makes sign(III) false.

Sign(III) is an OR function (it was stated that either-or was *inclusive*-or
in an earlier problem) which requires *both* clauses to be false.

so, sign(VII), meaning that the lady is not in room I.

Also, NOT sign(V), which is another OR function, both of whose switches must
be turned off.

Thus, NOT sign(IV); sign(I) is right, and the lady must be in either room I,
III, V, VI, and IX.

We've already eliminated rooms III, V, and IX, due to their signs being false,
which leaves rooms I and VII; and we had already eliminated room I due to
sign(VII) being true. This leaves the lady in room VII.


#83 of 132 by aruba on Sat Aug 16 19:04:02 1997:

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back here; Drew is right, of course, and
his solution is very succinct.  I'm going away for a while - anyone else want 
to enter a puzzle?


#84 of 132 by aruba on Fri Aug 29 17:47:35 1997:

Ok, so I've started reading Jack Chalker's Well World books.  The Well
world is supposed to be a planet which is divided into 1560 environments,
each of which is shaped like a hexagon.  "Each hex is identical in size -
each one of the six sides is just a shade under three hundred fifty-five
kilometers, and they're a shade under six hundred fifteen kilometers
across." 

So the planet is tiled with hexagons.  It's not clear whether 1560 is the
total number of hexagons, though, because Chalker implies later that some
hexes are cut in half by the equator, and I'm not sure whether those count
in the 1560 number (I think not).

So the question is: did Chalker think this out before he wrote it?  Is it
possible to tile a sphere with hexagons in a way that fits the
description?


#85 of 132 by rcurl on Sat Aug 30 02:00:06 1997:

There are only five regular polyhedrons - all sides the same shape and
a sphere touching each side at the center can be inscribed. I don't know,
however, how close one might get to the Well World - say, a mismatch at
just the poles. 


#86 of 132 by awijaya on Sat Aug 30 03:48:04 1997:

Hi, Math always the worst experience in college . I get E 
on both Calculus I & II. The only way to study it is
to do 10,000 exercises. (take a long time). The 2nd year,
I got A and B. It is a nightmare! Remembering all those
Integral formula etc. They just prove that Newton is 
wrong in Gravitation theory. There is a WEAK force
that cause in-accurate result. Fortunately physic is
an interesting subject (nuclear physic) Regards AW


#87 of 132 by awijaya on Sat Aug 30 03:59:14 1997:

Hi, about the book upgrade: what about buying CD, instead of books?
IMO it will be more exciting, easy to understand and save
tons of wood from Tropical rainforest. Perhaps they
can use rewritable CD to keep the cost down? What about bookstore
with CD-Writer? IMO it will be cheaper than printed books.
Regards (AW)


#88 of 132 by srw on Sat Aug 30 06:15:05 1997:

I don't think you can tile a sphere with any number of regular hexagons. 
You can tile a plane with them, though.

You need a few pentagons in order to get it to curl up into a sphere. 

If you look at a geodesic dome, a la Buckminster Fuller, you will see 
that it is made up of triangles, with 5 or 6 coming together at each 
point. The "dual" of this structure is made by using the center of each 
triangle as a node and connecting each new node to the adjacent ones. 
The dual of a geodesic dome is made up of hexagons and pentagons that 
tile a sphere. You can have many more hexagons if you like, but you need 
to have exactly 12 pentagons to complete the sphere. If you leave the 
hexagons out altogether, you have a dodecahedron.

The hexagons don't contribute any curling, which is why you can tile a 
plane with them. if they are regular, each one forms an inside angle of 
120 degrees at each vertex. Since there must be no more nor less than 3 
coming together at each point, they always sum to 360 degrees. Hence, no 
curling.

Curiously, although you can't tile a sphere with hexagons, you can tile 
a torus with them. To see this, section the torus and unwind it to form 
a cylinder, then cut the cylinder the long way and unwind it to form a 
rectangle. Tile the rectange as you would a plane, then wind it and 
stitch it back up the way you cut it.


#89 of 132 by rcurl on Sat Aug 30 06:26:12 1997:

That implies that I could roll a cylinder out of paper, and then wind it
into a torus. I can't. Or, please explain further.


#90 of 132 by i on Sat Aug 30 13:21:47 1997:

You're stretching & compressing the surface of the torus in your unwrapping
& wrapping operations - yes, they're all hexagons, but goodbye regularity.

I'm not familiar with all the official terminology used, but if you're
dividing up the surface of a sphere (curved pieces) instead of building
polyhedral solids (flat pieces), you CAN do it with hexagons.  Only 2 
are needed, and those unfamiliar with non-Euclidean geometry may have
problems with calling one of them a hexagon....  But they're regular!


#91 of 132 by rcurl on Sat Aug 30 17:46:52 1997:

The original proposition (#84) was that the hexagons were "all identical in
size" - that would imply all identical in shape, too, but they were not
stated to be regular (spherical) hexagons, thought the sides are nearly
all the same size, and all the hexagons are about the same 'diameter'....
So..what are the shapes of the two irregular hexagons (ala #90) with which
to (spherically) tile a sphere?


#92 of 132 by aruba on Sat Aug 30 18:56:53 1997:

Re #91:  I think what Walter is thinking of in #91 is: take a sphere, draw a
small hexagon on it.  Then the one you drew and its complement are two
hexagons which tile the sphere.

Are you sure, Rane, that "same size" (which I take to mean same area) implies
"same shape"?  Can you prove that?

Steve W., can you prove that you can't tile a sphere with hexagons?

I am assuming here that the sides of each hexagon should be "lines", which
on a sphere means segments of a great circle which are less than half a
circumference in length.


#93 of 132 by srw on Sat Aug 30 20:21:10 1997:

No, I can't. The logic I ran off in resp:88 did assume that exactly 3 
and no more or fewer hexagons came together at any one vertex. In order 
to drop that restruction, you would have to distort the shape of the 
hexagons.

Since your hinting above allows that the hexes may be distorted, it 
seems that my assumption may have been too great. Perhaps these must be 
the rules.

(1) Every shape is bounded by 6 straight sides (straight is "geodesic" 
or great circle on a sphere). All sides are the same length.

(2) Every shape has the same size. That is, the same total area.

(3) The entire sphere is covered, so that every point on the sphere is 
either in exactly one of these shapes, on the boundary of exactly two, 
or at an intersection of three or more.

Under those conditions, I believe I can prove that it cannot be done, 
but I am not posting such a proof here yet. The proof will assume that 
at least three hexagons come together at each vertex. Perhaps this is 
not a requirement.  Let me rewrite rule (3) above as follows...

(3) The entire sphere is covered, so that every point on the sphere is 
either in exactly one of these shapes, on the boundary of exactly two, 
or at an intersection of two or more.

This allows for two hexagons to share two adjacent pairs of edges and 
the vertex between them. Such a vertex I might choose to label "bogus", 
because only two edges meet. Topologically, these hexes are now a lot 
like pentagons, as they may have five (or fewer) neighboring hexagons.
If "bogus" vertices are allowed, then it very likely can be tiled.

In fact, I can modify the example Mark presumed Walter was proposing to 
the construct the following tiling of a sphere with 2 hexagons:

Take a sphere of radius r and draw 6 straight line segments of radius 
pi*r/3 along the equator so that they are laid out end-to-end and touch 
at 6 vertices, equally spaced along the equator. This tiles the sphere 
into two equally sized hexagons of area 2*pi*r^2

(OK, it is a bit degenerate, because the line segments are colinear, but 
it makes the point.)


#94 of 132 by aruba on Sat Aug 30 23:06:11 1997:

Yeah, I think it's OK to assume that every vertex is at the corner of at least
3 edges.  And each edge is a segment of a great circle.

I don't know if you can call what I was doing "hinting", because I don't
know the answer to this one.


#95 of 132 by i on Sun Aug 31 04:35:24 1997:

Re:  #92, 91 - aruba has the idea.  Regularity presents no challenge whatever.
You can even make the two hexagons the same size if you don't mind degenerate
n-gons on a sphere...as steve notes.  If what steve calls bogus vertices
are allowed, then 3, 4, and 5-gons can be called hexagons, and the regular
polyhedra provide plenty of regular & symmetrical tilings.  Disallowing
180-degree vertices (let's call the results "true" n-gons) messes up the
regularity and symmetry, but the tilings persist.


#96 of 132 by rcurl on Sun Aug 31 05:02:07 1997:

I don't think it has yet been pointed out that all the interior angles of
a regular spherical hexagon smaller than half the sphere, are greater
than 120 degrees. Hence no three regular spherical hexagons, regardless
of their size, can have a common vertex. My mind boggles, however, at
irregular hexagons of less than 6 edges....


#97 of 132 by remmers on Sun Aug 31 12:37:38 1997:

Those would be about as irregular as it's possible to get.


#98 of 132 by janc on Sun Aug 31 14:06:30 1997:

I think Chalker's plan is pretty hopeless.  Tiling a sphere is hexagons is
really pretty much the same problem as putting a grid of squares on it (you
can convert from a grid of squares to a grid of hexagons by shifting the odd
numbered rows half a square left and turning the horizonatal boundaries into
zig-zags).  But we know how successfull geographers have been at putting a
grid on the earths surface - The squares near the poles are awfully long and
skinny for squares.  I think the same problem arrises with hexagons.  The
polar hexes get very long and skinny - not even vaguely regular.

I seem to recall some of Chalker's later books admitted that the polar hexes
aren't as regular, and I think there are large polar regions that aren't
tiled.


#99 of 132 by i on Sun Aug 31 14:14:13 1997:

The interior angles of a regular spherical hexagon *larger* than half the
sphere are still greater than 120 - the size clause in #96 is unneeded.

Convexity (all interior angles <180) seems to be a popular assumption here.
If you don't get hung up with that, then degeneracy (an 180 interior angle,
thus 2 co-linear edges) is a very un-boggling point discontinuity in an
angle vs. # of sides graph.  

For greater irregularity, just allow 2-dimensional projections of 3-d
n-gons.  You get X-intersections of lines at non-vertex points, double
vertices, 0 length sides, and all sorts of fun.  (But this is boring from 
the tiling point of view, because ANY tiling of the sphere can be 
represented as such a projection of a 3-d n-gon!)


#100 of 132 by drew on Sun Aug 31 16:06:03 1997:

Someone recently came out with a 100-sided die. I'm not sure whether hexagons
could be circumscribed about the faces, but if a 100 sided die is possible,
then maybe something like hexagon-world could be done if you don't mind some
irregularity and mismatch.


#101 of 132 by i on Sun Aug 31 22:26:47 1997:

If you're just interested in generating random numbers from 1 to n, then a
fair n-sided die can easily be made.  Besides the common 6-siders, 4-, 8-
12-, and 20-sided dice (based on the regular polyhedra) are quite common.
(Dungeons & Dragons uses all these, as do a number of other games.)  The
results are often (mathematically and visually) uglier for other values
of n.  My guess is that commercial 100-sided dice would either split the
faces of a 20-sided die into 5 pieces (each) or follow an apple-peeler
pattern.  But I wouldn't be surprised by something really odd like a little
10-sided die inside a large, clear 10-sided die (read as 1's and 10's). 


#102 of 132 by remmers on Sun Aug 31 23:41:38 1997:

Okay, change-of-pace time! Here's a reasonably straightforward
geometry problem:

    Three billiard balls of diameter 1 are resting on a flat
    tabletop. Each ball is touching the other two. A fourth ball of
    diameter 1 rests on top of the first three. How high above the
    surface of the table is the apex of the fourth ball?

(Supply reasoning to justify your answer.)


#103 of 132 by rcurl on Mon Sep 1 01:55:33 1997:

It is the diameter of a ball plus the height of a tetrahedron with sides
equal to the diameter of a ball. (Reduced to previously solved problem....)


#104 of 132 by toking on Mon Sep 1 03:20:30 1997:

re 100: 100 sided die have been out for a while...I picked one
up in like 5th grade to use with D&D..





I recently finished "Flatland" by Edwin Abbott Abbott, is the sequel
"spehere Land" and good?


#105 of 132 by rcurl on Mon Sep 1 06:12:38 1997:

I have a "die" that was made by a statistician which is an aluminum 
ten-sided prism with the sides numbered (on the end of the prism) from
0 to 9. It is for generating random decimal numbers. 


#106 of 132 by remmers on Mon Sep 1 12:15:07 1997:

Re #103: Yeah, but what's the ANSWER?  :)


#107 of 132 by i on Mon Sep 1 15:20:11 1997:

Okay, let's roll out the old HS geometry and take a closer look at that
tetrahedron.  It's regular with edges of length 1, so all 4 faces are 
equilateral triangles with sides of length 1.  Bisect the 3 angles in the
base triangle and run the lines through the opposite sides.  The result
just oozes symmetries, similarities, and 30-60-90 triangles.  Note that
by easy symmetry arguments, the 3 bisectors meet at the center directly 
under the vertex.  Using the old 1|1/2|sqtr(3)/2 sides rule for those 
30-60-90 trianges gives us a distance of 1/sqrt(3) from a corner of the 
base to the center.  This distance and the (unknown) height are legs of
a right triangle with an edge as hypotenuse (1).  Pythagoras says the
height is sqrt(2/3), so (per #103), the answer is 1+sqrt(2/3).  


On to a probability problem.  It's not hard, but I've seen grad. students
flub it and I'm told that the government of India once made a major policy
decision based on a wrong answer to it.

Assume that the gender ratio at birth is 50-50 and that all births are
independent events.  (In other words, having babies is like flipping a 
fair coin - heads it's a boy, tails it's a girl.)  The following policy
is proposed:  Each couple may have two children.  If both are girls, then
they may have a third, if that's a girl, a 4th is permitted, etc.  (Two
very different ways you could interpret this sexism!  The intent was to
guarantee everyone a son who wasn't an only child.)  Assume that couples
will have as many children as permitted.  Ignore divorce, birth out of
wedlock, fertility running out before a son is born, etc.

What will the gender ratio of children born under this policy be?


#108 of 132 by drew on Mon Sep 1 21:53:03 1997:

Okay, I'll take a crack at it.

If you stop at two kids, then the ratio is 50/50. However, 25% of these
families will be two girls, and thus can have another kid. Of these, 50% will
have yet another girl, and of these 50% yet another... Thus we have:

M M                     1/4
M F                     1/4
F M                     1/4
F F M                   1/8
F F F M         1/16
F F F F M               1/32
.........
(n) F M          2^(-n-1)

In the first two cases, the ratio is one female to three males, multiplied
by 1/2. The rest can be generalized as n females to one male, multiplied by
(1/2)^(n+1). Expressing it as a sum:

        R  =  1/6 + sum(i=1 to inf) { i / 2^(i+1) }.

The series works out as 1/6 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 3/16 + 1/8 + 5/64 + 3/64 + ...
By experiment, the series seems to converge at 1.166666667 or 7/6. Shouldn't
be too much of a disaster in itself.

But the real problem is the population *growth*, the increase per generation.
This is best state, per couple, as

2/4 + 2/4 + 2/4 + 3/8 + 4/16 + 5/32 + ...
        or
1/2 + 1/2 + 2/4 + 3/8 + 4/16 + 5/32 + ... 
        or
1/2 + sum(i=1 to inf) { i / 2^i }.

This series converges, by experiment, at 2.5 children per male-female pair,
or 1.25 multiplication of the population every generation.


#109 of 132 by aruba on Tue Sep 2 00:59:10 1997:

Where did you get that 1/6 from, Drew?


#110 of 132 by drew on Wed Sep 3 00:04:01 1997:

The first two cases are  taken as the first term in the series - actually not
really a part of the series itself, but a special case.  The female to male
ratio among these first two cases is 1:3, and they take up half the outcomes,
for a product of 1/6.

I suspect my answer may not be right. I'll have to think this one over.


#111 of 132 by srw on Thu Sep 4 05:21:23 1997:

There is a simple proof that the series sum(i=1 to inf) (i / 2^i) = 2
based on the method of differentiating the series...to wit

Start with  y= sum[i=0,inf](x^i) = 1/(1-x) in the region 0<x<1

differentiate w.r.t. x - (you can differentiate each term of the series 
separately).  so it yields

dy/dx  =  sum[i=0,inf] (i * x^(i-1) )   = (1 - x)^(-2)

so if we substitute x=2^(-1) (another name for 0.5) we have this

sum[i=0,inf] (i / 2^(i-1)) = 4

now divide each side by 2 and note that the i=0 term is 0, so drop it

sum[i=1,inf] (i / 2^i ) = 2   QED

H O W E V E R .....

If you wish to determine the gender ratio you do not need to evaluate a 
series. It is 1:1 because each birth is independent. I don't see any 
need to argue further. 

For skeptics, if you really must do it by the series approach, then 
evaluate the expected number of males per family and the expected number 
of females. Both evaluate to 1.25 so the ratio really is 1:1

case       probability    E(M)   E(F)
MM         1/4            2/4    0/4
MF         1/4            1/4    1/4
FM         1/4            1/4    1/4
FFM        1/8            1/8    2/8
FFFM       1/16           1/16   3/16
FFFFM      1/32           1/32   4/32

The E(M) series is 1/4 + sum[i=1,inf](1/2^i) = 1/4 + 1
The E(F) series is 1/4 + sum[i=1,inf](i/2^(i+1)) = 1/4 + 1


#112 of 132 by aruba on Thu Sep 4 17:42:41 1997:

Another way to find the expected number of girls G (which doesn't require
any calculus) is: 

         G = 0/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 2/8 + 3/16 + 4/32 + ...
           = 1/4 +       1/4 + 2/8 + 3/16 + 4/32 + ...
==>     2G = 2/4 + 1/2 + 2/4 + 3/8 + 4/16 + 5/32 + ...
==>   2G-G = 1/4 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + ...
==>      G = 1/4 + (1/2)/(1-1/2)
           = 1/4 + 1
           = 5/4

Drew's interesting observation about the increase in population is quite
right, each generation will be 25% bigger than the last if everyone has
children.  That would be kind of a problem.


#113 of 132 by i on Thu Sep 4 22:52:16 1997:

(Compared to the actual growth rates, 25% per generation [less early 
mortality, infertility, etc.] would have been wonderfully low, and 
India would be in much better shape today.)

Steve's "H O W E V E R..." in #111 is the correct and "best" solution.
There are simpler "add things up" solutions, but this is one of those
problems where the student's approach tells the teacher more about his/her
understanding than anything else.

(The instructor threw this problem at a class of PhD-track math (not stats)
grad students I was in.  The initial class consensus was for a wrong answer
[and they almost agreed on which one].)


On to a more familiar mathematical topic - Sets.  Apples and oranges are
elements of the set of fruits, Mr. Figston's 3rd grade is a subset of the
set of students at Washington Elementary School, the intersection of the
set of wet thing with the set of dry things is the empty set, and all that
fun. 

One very popular set is the Universal Set, which contains EVERYTHING - real,
abstract, imagined or undiscovered, simple or complex, it's all there.  But
the idea that such a set can exist suffers from a fatal logical flaw.  It 
is not that the Universal Set can't contain itself as a subset - but that's
a good hint on where to start looking.


#114 of 132 by remmers on Fri Sep 5 00:34:30 1997:

Did you mean to say "contain itself as a subset" or "contain
itself as an element"?


#115 of 132 by srw on Fri Sep 5 02:38:40 1997:

resp:112 Hey, that's cool, Mark. I learned how to solve that silly 
series using differentiation. Your way is much better.


#116 of 132 by tpryan on Fri Sep 5 22:37:42 1997:

        Would the Universal Set, then try to contain 'null' and 'infinity'
at the same time?


#117 of 132 by i on Fri Sep 5 22:59:36 1997:

The Universal Set (U for short), by "definition", contains null, infinity,
and anything else you can think up.  Yourself included.

Re #114:  U must do both.  I believe that a contradiction can be derived
either way, but the "nontraditional" one requires minimal knowledge of
power sets.


#118 of 132 by remmers on Sat Sep 6 13:15:47 1997:

Well, every set contains itself as a subset, so I figured you
must have meant "contain itself as an element".

The most familiar contradiction based on the notion of sets
containing themselves as elements is the Russell Paradox, which
goes as follows: Let S be the set of all sets that are not
elements of themselves. Then if S is an element of itself, then
by definition of S, S is not an element of itself. Conversely,
if S is not an element of itself, then again by definition of
S, S is an element of itself.


#119 of 132 by rcurl on Sat Sep 6 16:09:58 1997:

Mike shaves all men that do not shave themselves. Does Mike shave himself?


#120 of 132 by mcnally on Sat Sep 6 16:40:26 1997:

re #119:  Your statement of Russell's "Barber" paradox is insufficient
to indicate the paradox since it says nothing about whether or not the
barber shaves some of those who shave themselves (which would only include
the barber..) or whether or not the restriction applies to the barber
(e.g. is the barber a woman?)  You need a restriction more like "the barber
shaves all those and *only* those who don't shave themselves.."


#121 of 132 by rcurl on Sat Sep 6 17:42:42 1997:

Ok, fine. But if you are going to be particular, remember that the
defining relative pronoun is *that*, so it has to be stated as "the barber
shaves all those and only those *that* don't shave themselves." 



#122 of 132 by i on Sun Sep 7 14:06:48 1997:

Re: #118 - my meaning was that a contradiction can be obtained by looking
either at sets which are elements of U or at sets which are subsets of U
(the power sets are used in the latter).  I did't want to give too big a hint. 

This Statement Is False.

(Is the above statement a paradox?  Is it not a paradox only for "poetic"
reasons - the contradiction is too poorly hidden, insufficiently interesting,
etc.?  What is a paradox?)


#123 of 132 by tpryan on Fri Sep 12 23:00:16 1997:

        Hey, I know Barry & Sally Childs-Helton, they both have Phds,
they are a Paradox.


#124 of 132 by dang on Mon Sep 29 17:16:32 1997:

re 122: two places to moor ships.

Speaking of Russel's paradox, Greg (my roommate, flem) was just reading his
autobiography and mentioned it to me last night.  Interesting coincidance.


#125 of 132 by lilmo on Thu Dec 18 01:23:13 1997:

Isn't a paradox something that appears to be true, even though it is not?


#126 of 132 by srw on Fri Dec 19 03:40:15 1997:

Er, not exactly. I would describe a paradox as an assertion that seems to be
contradictory. Almost the opposite of your definition.


#127 of 132 by rcurl on Fri Dec 19 17:40:12 1997:

I agree with Steve. A paradox appears to be internally contradictory.
Paradoxes may have resolutions, or they may not. Something that "appears to
be true, even though it is not" is just an error. I think there is 
an expression for it, such as "plausible but mistaken".


#128 of 132 by lilmo on Sat Jan 3 21:56:46 1998:

Chalk one up to fuzzy-headedness.  *sigh*


#129 of 132 by anilkk on Wed Jan 13 17:41:21 1999:

paradox is self-contradictory.


#130 of 132 by lilmo on Sat Apr 17 00:02:49 1999:

Re #129:  A paradox is something that *appears* so be self-contradictory.


#131 of 132 by rcurl on Sat Apr 17 04:01:54 1999:

That's what I said in #127.......  ;)


#132 of 132 by lilmo on Tue Apr 20 01:08:27 1999:

Apparently, he missed it the first time.  :-)


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