pbray: (SOAP)
pbray ([personal profile] pbray) wrote2006-04-13 01:51 pm

Snakes on a math problem

There are n Snakes on the Plane. There are k Passengers on the Plane. Each Snake will Bite One Passenger at Random. What is the Probability that The Target, Mr. X, does not get bit?

Click here to see the solution.

[identity profile] pbray.livejournal.com 2006-04-13 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Yup. My friends [livejournal.com profile] yeep and [livejournal.com profile] jpsorrow are always telling me "I'm a MATHEMATICIAN not an ARITHMETICIAN." Or something like that. As a CompSci major I tune them out when they go geeky on me.

It's interesting to me how many writers I know turn out to have been math majors.

[identity profile] pbray.livejournal.com 2006-04-13 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
*facepalm* Ooops. It's not yeep, it's [livejournal.com profile] jennifer_dunne. But same point holds.
larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Default)

[personal profile] larryhammer 2006-04-13 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
*g*

I was actually a math+physics double major, and got my masters in physics -- with a minor in numerical methods. So, I was a computational physics person.

---L.

[identity profile] aeriedraconia.livejournal.com 2006-04-13 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Egads! Mathematicians. Elitist geekery. ;-)