Math Problem
Originally I had planned to post on the transit of Venus, but clouds prevented me from seeing it....At least I saw the previous transit, in 2004.
Recently, in "yahoo answers" someone posted this problem:
"A naturalist catches 543 deer, tags them and releases them back into a game preserve. Later a sample of 531 deer are caught, 177 of which are tagged. What is the total number of deer in the preserve?"
To me, it was obvious that if one third of a sample (531 divided by 3 =177) are tagged, all those tagged (543) must be one third of the total #. Ergo, there are 1,629 deer in the preserve. When I later posted the question in some forum, two bright people came up with the same figure. But the answer voted "best" was "622 or 623 depending on how you round it." That answer is patently absurd. The total number tagged (543) added to those in the sample not tagged (354) indicates the number present couldn't be less than 897. From now on, best answers should be chosen by experts in various fields, not lay voters.
Recently, in "yahoo answers" someone posted this problem:
"A naturalist catches 543 deer, tags them and releases them back into a game preserve. Later a sample of 531 deer are caught, 177 of which are tagged. What is the total number of deer in the preserve?"
To me, it was obvious that if one third of a sample (531 divided by 3 =177) are tagged, all those tagged (543) must be one third of the total #. Ergo, there are 1,629 deer in the preserve. When I later posted the question in some forum, two bright people came up with the same figure. But the answer voted "best" was "622 or 623 depending on how you round it." That answer is patently absurd. The total number tagged (543) added to those in the sample not tagged (354) indicates the number present couldn't be less than 897. From now on, best answers should be chosen by experts in various fields, not lay voters.
posted by starman at 6:57 AM
3 Comments:
Experts should certainly be the ones to answer the questions. I have seen some ridiculous answers made by people who obviously don't have their facts straight. For example, some have made absurd claims, such as saying that dinosaurs didn't exist or that that existed 5,000 years ago.
It doesn't seem to me that nobody but recognized/degreed/published/-relevantly-employed/official/cred-entialled "experts" should be allowed to post answers unless the forum explicitly guarantees that. In cases like this, for example, there are millions of fairly bright folks who could give the correct answer--for free, while an expert might charge $$$. I wish that there had been some opportunity for discussion between people who came up with the wrong answer and those who got it right, which might have made it clear to all what the truth was. (Why wasn't there?)
"Yahoo answers" could use some improvement. For now, all that can be done is to have people with a grey matter like you two, vote for my answers. Why not regularly follow me on yahoo answers? :)
Post a Comment
<< Home