Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[Buster Highmen]

I mean, doesn't this really depend on the temporal resolution of your measurements? Just because you're reporting daily totals doesn't mean that the actual data doesn't capture the moment in time when it's half-covered.

Yes. If one only samples at 24 hour intervals, the usual claim is wrong.

[Buster Highmen]

The whole premise is that it is perfectly full on X day. .Yes, you're right, generally speaking a real life situation would work forward and not backward and you'd be right, but it's needlessly confusing for the demonstration of the issue.

That's not the way I read it. It could be 9999/10000 covered on the 29th day.
Being needlessly confusing is how things often are, it's not my fault. The postulate never claims exactly full.

I can be faulted for thinking of counterexamples. Sue me.

[Ted Striker]

The doubling rate or the area of a lily pad is independent of the pond surface area.

So, it's possible that after 28 days, the pond is 1/3 covered, after 29 days, it's 2/3 covered, then on the 30th day it's 4/3s covered, so the 30th day is the first day it's covered.

But it was never half covered even thought it was covered on the 30th day.

African or European Lily Pads?

[rideit]

No, at some point during that day, it was most certainly only 1/2 covered.

[powdrhound]

The pond is screwed in all scenarios.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

we're safe now.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1246466629808066561

[MakersTeleMark]

The lilies come out at night. And I can see why Danno is fascinated about this phenomenon of basic math.

[The AD]

The other classic, working forward, is the grains of rice on a chess board problem. If you start with a single grain on the first square and double the amount of rice on every square you'll have a total of 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains on the chessboard.

[idahospud]

African or European Lily Pads?

Asking the real questions!

[rideit]

The other classic, working forward, is the grains of rice on a chess board problem. If you start with a single grain on the first square and double the amount of rice on every square you'll have a total of 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains on the chessboard.

Depends on how big the chessboard is, I guess?

[Buster Highmen]

No, at some point during that day, it was most certainly only 1/2 covered.

Depends on the size of the lily pad and the size of the pond. It may not be exactly 1/2 covered unless the lily pads grow from infinitesimal to some particular size. But, if when they surface there's not of infinitesimal size, the claim is invalid.

This is what the Catholic church fought so hard against during the Rennaisance.

[MakersTeleMark]

The pond is screwed in all scenarios.

Shoot the lily.

[Buster Highmen]

Depends on how big the chessboard is, I guess?

And the grains of rice. I hadn't known they were that standardized.

[rideit]

Depends on the size of the lily pad and the size of the pond. It may not be exactly 1/2 covered unless the lily pads grow from infinitesimal to some particular size. But, if when they surface there's not of infinitesimal size, the claim is invalid.

This is what the Catholic church fought so hard against during the Rennaisance.

That’s called splitting angel hairs.

[Buster Highmen]

What if there's treadmills surfacing in the pond? Will the jet takeoff?

[The AD]

Depends on how big the chessboard is, I guess?

We're talking regular 2D chess here. rideit...

I guess we've got to assume it's a pretty ginormous chessboard to hold all that rice, though.

[Buster Highmen]

That’s called splitting angel hairs.

I try to do that every night with limited success.

[rideit]

There is a logical flaw, however, that many grains simply wouldn’t fit on a ‘regular’ chessboard.
But I get it.

[MultiVerse]

the version I have seen was the lily pad is full on day 60, so yeah, half full on day 59. That's not hard to understand.

But on what day is the pond even 1% full?

That's day 54. And THAT is really hard to fucking understand, that the pond that is full on day 60 is not even 1% full on day 53.

Yeah, the counterintuitive thing is how long it takes before it looks like anything is happening. For the 30 day pond it takes until day 24 for more than 1% of the pond to be covered:

Day 20: .01%,
Day 21: .02%
Day 22: .04%
Day 23: .078%
Day 24: 1.56%
Day 25: 3.125%
Day 26: 6.25%
Day 27: 12.5%
Day 28: 25%
Day 29: 50%
Day 30: 100%

[The AD]

The chessboard is probably a more useful analogy here because it's really the total number that's important (i.e. deaths or number infected in a pandemic).

[Buster Highmen]

There is a logical flaw, however, that many grains simply wouldn’t fit on a ‘regular’ chessboard.
But I get it.

Depends on if you use English or metric, doesn't it?

[The AD]

Depends on if you use English or metric, doesn't it?

I've always struggled with metric chess. All that doubling and adding thirty for every move gets complicated.

[MakersTeleMark]

It's called a metric shitton for a reason.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...c%20shit%20ton

[Buster Highmen]

I've always struggled with metric chess. All that doubling and adding thirty for every move gets complicated.

I just multiply by 1.6 and call it good. But I still wonder if the rice grain takes off.

[Core Shot]

What if the Lilly pads are in an airplane on a treadmill?