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Thread: Useless facts/knowledge
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05-23-2014, 03:57 PM #111
The wonderful 12th-century Aberdeen Bestiary describes beavers thus:
Of the beaver There is an animal called the beaver, which is extremely gentle; its testicles are are highly suitable for medicine. Physiologus says of it that, when it knows that a hunter is pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them in the hunter's face and, taking flight, escapes. But if, once again, another hunter is in pursuit, the beaver rears up and displays its sexual organs. When the hunter sees that it lacks testicles, he leaves it alone. Thus every man who heeds God's commandment and wishes to live chastely should cut off all his vices and shameless acts, and cast them from him into the face of the devil. Then the devil, seeing that the man has nothing belonging to him, retires in disorder. That man, however, lives in God and is not taken by the devil, who says: 'I will pursue, I will overtake them...'(Exodus, 15:9) The name castor comes from castrando, 'castrate'.
It was in original condition, faded red, well-worn, but nice.
This was and still is my favorite combination; beautiful, original, and worn.
-Neil Young
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05-23-2014, 07:32 PM #112
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05-23-2014, 10:01 PM #113
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Thanked: 1587If you arrive at a bus stop at some random point in time, and if the busses arrive at that bus stop according to a Poisson process, and if the mean time between bus arrivals is 30 minutes, you should expect to wait, on average, 30 minutes for the next bus.
Eerie, no?
James.<This signature intentionally left blank>
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05-23-2014, 11:40 PM #114
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05-24-2014, 12:23 AM #115
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05-24-2014, 12:34 AM #116
1899..."Ten pounds of “our own roasted coffee” — $2.08 for the coffee plus a decorated enameled canister!"
SEARS!
~RichardBe yourself; everyone else is already taken.
- Oscar Wilde
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05-24-2014, 02:19 AM #117
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05-24-2014, 02:42 AM #118
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05-24-2014, 02:52 AM #119
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05-24-2014, 03:38 AM #120
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Thanked: 1587It's known as the waiting time paradox in certain circles.
It's got to do with the idea of the mean time between buses - it's just the average, so actual bus arrivals will vary: some will take less time, some will take more time. There's a higher chance of you arriving in one of these longer time periods than arriving in a shorter one, so your average waiting time is longer than what you'd expect it to be if the buses arrived at exactly 30 minute intervals. Of course, if you arrive at the bus stop at random and the buses come exactly every 30 minutes, your expected waiting time would be 15 minutes.
The poisson process bit is what makes the average waiting time equal to the average time between buses - in a Poisson process the variance equals the mean, which makes the math work out the way it does (mean wait = mean time between buses). More generally the average waiting time is longer than half the mean time between buses, how much longer depending on the variance of bus arrival times.
It doesn't have to be buses either, of course. Any old waiting time will do.
James.<This signature intentionally left blank>
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edhewitt (05-28-2014)