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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 12/20/2012 : 01:39:16 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by ThorGoLucky
A while back, I unsubscribed from The Amazing Atheist because of unwarranted ad hominem attacks and other dickishness, but I liked this video and saw some of myself in him when I have fun arguing with myself. |
Yeah, after the hateful things he's said to women, I can't even look at that guy's face. He's too full of himself to recognize his own biases, which are plentiful. He might be an atheist, but he's no skeptic.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2012 : 01:20:54 [Permalink]
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Somewhere this morning, not far from the Equator, a neatly dressed young man is packing his rucksack for his first day of tramping village to village and door to door with his partner.
Please help him decide what should go into his pack. Indivisible sets of available items are arrayed on a table around the pack, and each set is labeled with its weight in pounds and its estimated value in terms of souls. Only souls matter to this young man.
The pack can't hold everything, only 30 lbs. What is the best way to load the pack so that it best helps the young man to save the most (estimated) souls? And how should the young man calculate such a problem when it arises in the future? Is there a formula or technique he should know? Is there a name for this kind of problem?
First, please solve this problem while assuming that there is only one of each set of items. Then, solve for a situation where there are unlimited numbers of each set of items (except for having just the one pack).
[Adapted from something I saw on Wikipedia.]
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 12/22/2012 02:06:23 |
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Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
 Posted - 12/22/2012 : 10:33:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Somewhere this morning, not far from the Equator, a neatly dressed young man is packing his rucksack for his first day of tramping village to village and door to door with his partner.
Please help him decide what should go into his pack. Indivisible sets of available items are arrayed on a table around the pack, and each set is labeled with its weight in pounds and its estimated value in terms of souls. Only souls matter to this young man.
The pack can't hold everything, only 30 lbs. What is the best way to load the pack so that it best helps the young man to save the most (estimated) souls? And how should the young man calculate such a problem when it arises in the future? Is there a formula or technique he should know? Is there a name for this kind of problem?
First, please solve this problem while assuming that there is only one of each set of items. Then, solve for a situation where there are unlimited numbers of each set of items (except for having just the one pack).
[Adapted from something I saw on Wikipedia.] |
Clever!
As you see, the Book of Mormon has the highest soul to weight ratio at 1.25, so you would want to load up the backpack with as many of those babys as possible, right?
Of course this precludes using the LDS Pamphlets, but with a ratio of 0.17, they are by far the least useful anyway. Further analysis shows the greatest number of souls saved by including the pamphlets will be 8 (with the "one of each" constraint -- otherwise it's 10 souls). Whichever way you look at it, these pamphlets are a bad choice.
Lunch has the next highest ratio (phew! Don't want to starve out there, eh?) at 1.00, so that's next.
After that, since we can't fit the LDS Pamphlets (discussed above), we'll put one of each of the remaining items into the bag for a total of 15 souls with 16 lbs.
For the unlimited number of each item, we'll want to fill up the bag with Books of Mormon (three of them for 30 souls and 24 lbs) then use the remaining space to hold lunches (three of these for 6 souls and 6 lbs), for a total of 36 souls.
Of course, in either of these scenarios somebody gets pretty thirsty, and since you mentioned it's an equatorial region, you're not going to save many souls if you die of thirst.
In reality, of course, the greatest number of souls would be saved if we fill up the back with food and water...perhaps some reading material to pass the time.
Water and food for two people totals 6 lbs. This means we can save 10 souls if we don't mind the boredom. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2012 : 05:28:42 [Permalink]
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Thank you for dealing with that problem, Boron! As a Naval officer with a rounded experience, you must many times have had to consider the logistical management problem of getting the greatest military value stowed aboard a war craft of limited displacement.
I found this image at in the Wikipedia article on this kind of problem, which I find most interesting. I simply ripped it off using new graphics, renamed kilograms as pounds (while doubling the number all around), and made up the Mormon missionary story:
Your solutions for the two stated cases (limited and unlimited item numbers) involved deriving values as ratio of souls saved to weight, then packing all the available highest ratio value items in until there was no more room for that type or until that type ran out. Then you selected the highest ratio value item remaining, packig this item until it ran out or there was no further room for it. You continued this cycle until there was no further room in the bag for any type of item. That makes great sense, but is it the only good way to do it?
(As an aside, the above method would often be impractical in real life, as it doesn't allow for any kind of realistic balance -- I see your comment on the hydration pack as acknowledging that limitation. Let's say you were replenishing a submarine at sea. The militarily most high-ratio items on a sub might be torpedoes. But stuffing every available space on a sub with "fish" and neglecting to take aboard provisions for the crew would be counterproductive. The LDS backpack case is constrained to be oversimplified in comparison or reality.)
Obviously solutions to such problems have wide application in every imaginable endeavor. I'm still wondering if anyone can come up with the name of this problem. And what is the standard (mathematical?) formula for its solution, if any? Was Boron's way the only way and the best?
(Don't worry, I'll link to the article later.) |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2012 : 06:45:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
(Don't worry, I'll link to the article later.) |
Spoiler alert:I looked and saw you named your copy of the image with the word "knapsack," so I typed "knapsack wiki" into Google and the first result gave the answer(s) to your question(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2012 : 12:26:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Thank you for dealing with that problem, Boron! As a Naval officer with a rounded experience, you must many times have had to consider the logistical management problem of getting the greatest military value stowed aboard a war craft of limited displacement.
I found this image at in the Wikipedia article on this kind of problem, which I find most interesting. I simply ripped it off using new graphics, renamed kilograms as pounds (while doubling the number all around), and made up the Mormon missionary story:
(picture removed - B10)
Your solutions for the two stated cases (limited and unlimited item numbers) involved deriving values as ratio of souls saved to weight, then packing all the available highest ratio value items in until there was no more room for that type or until that type ran out. Then you selected the highest ratio value item remaining, packig this item until it ran out or there was no further room for it. You continued this cycle until there was no further room in the bag for any type of item. That makes great sense, but is it the only good way to do it?
(As an aside, the above method would often be impractical in real life, as it doesn't allow for any kind of realistic balance -- I see your comment on the hydration pack as acknowledging that limitation. Let's say you were replenishing a submarine at sea. The militarily most high-ratio items on a sub might be torpedoes. But stuffing every available space on a sub with "fish" and neglecting to take aboard provisions for the crew would be counterproductive. The LDS backpack case is constrained to be oversimplified in comparison or reality.)
Obviously solutions to such problems have wide application in every imaginable endeavor. I'm still wondering if anyone can come up with the name of this problem. And what is the standard (mathematical?) formula for its solution, if any? Was Boron's way the only way and the best?
(Don't worry, I'll link to the article later.) |
My solution above is by no means the most effective in the general case, but it carries the easist explanation (and allows for the snide comment that food and water are more useful than Books of Mormon).
And, of course, Dave W. is right. This is a recreational mathematics problem that had grown into extensive utility in programming, finance, and other fields.
A great book on the subject is the The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems, by Martin Gardner.
My favorite "unsolved" problem is the Travelling Salesman. It can be solved using brute-force computer analysis, but it has no elegant solution.... |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2012 : 01:11:32 [Permalink]
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Ah, the late, great Martin Gardner! That guy gave me many a puzzler and made me respect mathematics, even when I could not comprehend it myself.
And here is the link for the Wikipedia article on what is known as the "Knapsack Problem." |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2013 : 11:19:58 [Permalink]
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Cell phone pics from dear friend Brouhaha...
 
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2013 : 18:11:15 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by ThorGoLucky
Cell phone pics from dear friend Brouhaha...
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Awesome!  |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2013 : 14:16:53 [Permalink]
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I made some flowcharts using LibreOffice Draw that compare how intuition is dealt with by different folks.
Edited to ask for input/suggestions, ja!
Edited to change "Science" to "Scepticism".
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| Edited by - ThorGoLucky on 01/03/2013 08:33:27 |
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TOR Hershman
Not Funny
51 Posts |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2013 : 14:04:32 [Permalink]
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| What I'm seeing doesn't make sense, so I'm freaking out. |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2013 : 12:50:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by sailingsoul
What I'm seeing doesn't make sense, so I'm freaking out.
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Awesome. Precious looks on their faces.
And it reminded me of...
http://www.thisistrue.com/chaired.html
TOR, I like the Deep Purple parody but it's rather subtle.
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| Edited by - ThorGoLucky on 01/14/2013 12:56:32 |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2013 : 16:05:21 [Permalink]
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I mean really, the boarder agents are also looking for pot etc; hidden in the interior. That seat was screaming "Hay! big boy, check me out". |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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Random fun
