St. Patrick’s Day

The Google Doodle of the day tells me that it’s St. Patrick’s Day today, so what better way to celebrate than with some math problems?

1) A leprechaun is playing a game. He rolls a die, and every time his roll and the number opposite on the (normal, six-sided) die sum to seven, he drinks a quart of beer. After four rolls, what is the probability that the leprechaun has drunk a gallon of beer?

2) At the leprechaun bar, the probability that a leprechaun is forbidden another drink by the bartender is the same as the probability of flipping an infinite number of tails in a row with a fair coin. How many leprechauns go home sober?

3) Two leprechauns are playing ping pong with a ball with a coefficient of restitution of 0. The loser of each point drinks a pint of beer. What is the final score of the game, how long does the game take, and how drunk are the leprechauns at the end of the game?

Answers to come in my next post, and for the record, here’s the real reason St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated.

Pi Day

As of right now, I do not have any pie, but I do have some very exciting pie charts. A couple weeks ago I tracked/estimated the amount of time per week I spend on various activities. I was either in class or doing homework/class related activities for about 47 hours, I got just under 56 hours of sleep, I spent about 10 hours eating, and the remaining 57 hours of the week were spread out among a large number of other activities.

Here’s what the pie chart looks like (click to zoom in):

Other includes everything from travelling to and from class, church, rock climbing , pep band, going to see Frozen, listening to the Revolution game on the radio, and blogging, among other things.  What’s underrepresented in this particular week is pep band, because I ended up having to skip most of the events to do problem sets and go to office hours.

Then I decided to break down my class time to see how much time I spent on each class. In terms of lectures and discussions, I have 2 and a half hours of biomolecular engineering, 3 hours and 20 minutes of physical chemistry, 3 hours and 40 minutes of physical chemistry lab, 4 hours and 25 minutes of fluid mechanics, and I’m supposed to have 2 and a half hours of economics. I say supposed to because my TA never showed up for discussion. Class time total for the week: 15 hours, 50 minutes.

That was added to any homework, studying, or prelims for the week, which included a p-chem prelim, an econ prelim, 7 hours of fluids homework on Thursday, and 6 hours of bio homework on Friday. It was a fun week, but aren't they all?

Here’s the pie chart for the breakdown of my class time:

Even with a p-chem prelim instead of a problem set, I think the numbers came out about the same as usual. We have bio problem sets due about every other week, so that number can vary a lot. As for fluids . . . I have no words to sum up this class.

So to close, have a Happy Pi Day. I have the entire afternoon free, but don’t worry, my next round of problem sets should be assigned in a few hours.

The Aliens are Here

I don’t know why the sky is that color, but it’s unnatural, so it must be the aliens.

Cornell wins, Jenny dies, end of [Love] Story

Letters

Dear Google,

Why is it that the newsletter from Diversity Programs in Engineering at Cornell goes to spam despite me marking it as “not spam” every single week for the past five months but an email informing me that I have won 50,000 pounds – which is 81,420 US dollars, by the way – makes it into my inbox? I guess the sender’s email address of 19378578@mail.com sounded more legitimate than @cornell.edu.

Sincerely,
No regrets for giving mlssoccer.com my email address so I could watch the Revolution on the Free Stream of the Week


Dear Minesweeper programmers,

Solve this:

Sincerely,
If I wanted 50-50 chances I would have played roulette


Dear New England Revolution,

Thank you for finally making the playoffs last season. However, in light of how last season started out, here’s a friendly reminder. On the soccer field, there are two goals. Your goal, and your opponent’s goal.

This is a soccer ball:

The ball goes into your opponent’s net.

Sincerely,
Revolution Fans Everywhere


Dear Peter Jackson,

I don’t care how sturdy dwarves are; nobody falls five hundred feet, gets up, and goes “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but last time I checked Middle Earth wasn’t No Physics Land.

Sincerely,
F = ma