Saturday, February 02, 2008

That I am allowed to experience this!

Imagine you have missed the bus or the tramvai by a hair; and, alas, today of all days Flann O'Brien's The third Policeman is not at hand. So, what next? Boring yourself for some twenty minutes or ... rather walking to the next stop, on the risk of not walking fast enough and thus again missing the bus/tramvai?

To be on the safe side, all you need is but a bit knowledge of advanced probability and integral calculus.

Mathematicians Scott Kominers, Robert Sinnott (Harvard University) and Justin Chen (California Institute of Technology) derived a formula for the optimal time that you should wait for a tardy bus at each stop en route before giving up and walking on.

The research group found that the solution was surprisingly simple, as you will surely agree:



Now, are you grateful that you are allowed to live experiencing this magic moment, in which one of the last most brainteasing and riddling conundrums of all mysteriously puzzling enigmata has been solved, or are are you grateful to live experiencing this magic moment, in which one of the last most brainteasing and riddling conundrums of all mysteriously puzzling enigmata has been solved?

I thought so.

And now you'd like to get closer to the essential inheritent interior essence which is hidden in the root of the kernel of everything?

I thought so.

Here you are.


And here one anticipatory reaction:

'Science knows only one commandment: contribute to science.'
Bertold Brecht, Galileo, 1943

And one reactionary anticipation:

'The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.'
Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, 1825


In case you miss it, I can't serve you with a quotation from Tetrapilotomos. He'd not be amused if I disturbed
Calvagh O'Seanacháin and him while celebrating the 126th anniversary of their friend's birthday.

?

Ah, yes, of course, it's James Joyce.