no subject

[Guest guest]

a freind whose studying statistics just sent us this...

 

>McDonald's . Have you seen their ad for the McChoice menu? That's

>the one where you can choose from 8 items that cost 99p each. Firstly half

>the items on it already cost 99p anyway. Secondly, they boast that from

>their menu of savoury dishes such as watered-down McPiss and McBSE ,

>you can choose 40,312 different combinations. McBullshit . Say you have

>n distinct objects, and want to choose k of them, assuming the order you

>choose them in isn't important. Then there are n! / k!(n-k)! different

>possible combinations (where k! = k.(k-1).(k-2).... 2.1). Since we're just

>ordering food here, the order (in the mathematical sense) isn't important.

>After all, what's the difference between ordering a coke and chips, or

>chips and coke? So anyway, say you wanted to order 1 item from a choice of

>8. In this case n = 8 and k = 1. Therefore, there are 8! / 1!7! = 8 ways of

>doing this. Obviously. For 2 items, there are 8! / 2!6! = 28 combinations,

>and so on.... Work this out for all values of k = {1, ..., 8} to find all

>the ways of ordering each number items from the menu. Sum them, and you'll

>find there are a pitiful 255 McCombinations . 256 if you include the

>sensible option of not ordering anything at all (k = 0, and 0! = 1, which

>may seem odd but we were shown a proof for this last year so it is true).

>Nowhere near as impressive as 40,312 - a number which I can only assume

>originated from Ronald McDonald's McArse . 8! = 40,320 which may

>explain something. That gives the number of combinations for ordering 8

>items where order does matter, eg AB is different from BA. Why they

>subtracted 8 from that, I can't think. McArseholes .

>

>So now you see, statistics is a very worthwhile course, with many practical

>applications.

>

>Raj

 

 

 

" You’re either with us or you’re against us in the fight against terror " -

President Bush

 

" We refuse the choice that is offered by both sides in this conflict - you

are either for us or against us. As anarchists we obviously see little

attraction in the sort of religious state fantasized about by Bin Laden and

enacted by the Taliban. But we also oppose the fake democracy of the western

states where politicians are bought by oil companies, refugees are

criminalised and where corporations rule "

Glasgow Anarchists: http://gaia.4dw.com

 

 

_______________

Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com