Pallets in fields

dave1949 · Feb 10, 2014

blueriver said:
That's what I'm talking about ... May the pallet fires begin .. I elect Dave to carry the pallet torch at the opening ceremony !!!

No, it has to be "Burn 'em" James. I could not in good conscience deny him, or the thousands of spectators, that pleasure.

Picture James, trotting across the open expanse of the arena, with a wildly flaming torch in one hand while trying to keep the other out of his front pocket. For him, it will be the thrill of a lifetime; you might say it will be his version of the "Special Olympics."

k0ua · Feb 10, 2014

blueriver said:
That's what I'm talking about ... May the pallet fires begin .. I elect Dave to carry the pallet torch at the opening ceremony !!!

+1 on that.. light him up!

smstonypoint · Feb 10, 2014

Dave, I think you have mentioned that you spent time in Germany. If so, did you serve in the Prussian cavalry? If your answer is "Yes," I have a lock on a Nobel Prize: Ladislaus Bortkiewicz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Steve

dave1949 · Feb 10, 2014

smstonypoint said:
Dave, I think you have mentioned that you spent time in Germany. If so, did you serve in the Prussian cavalry? If your answer is "Yes," I have a lock on a Nobel Prize: Ladislaus Bortkiewicz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Steve

'Fraid not. Your long-running quest for a Nobel Prize is shameless.

Bortkiewcz's The Law of Small Numbers does sound intriguing and right up my alley however. How complicated could 1,2,3 be? Technically, zero would be excluded, right?

smstonypoint · Feb 10, 2014

dave1949 said:
'Fraid not. Your long-running quest for a Nobel Prize is shameless.

Bortkiewcz's The Law of Small Numbers does sound intriguing and right up my alley however. How complicated could 1,2,3 be? Technically, zero would be excluded, right?

Rats!

Did any of your relatives serve in the Prussian cavalry?

No, zero is not excluded. The probability that you will have zero delusions per week is very small, but it is positive. My tentative estimate of lambda for your case is 14, so the estimated probability that you will have zero delusions this week is 8.31528719103568E-07.

Steve

dave1949 · Feb 10, 2014

As promised, to show my gratitude to Steve for his gracious featuring of me in his latest submission to The Journal of the American Mathematical Society, I have been collecting Steve Cam images that illustrate The Man Behind The Math - Steve at Home. It is my hope that through this series of candid vignettes, the true nature of Steve's humanity will be revealed. There is more to Steve, as you will discover, than his public existence as a quaint quant.

Steve has a collection of bunny slippers and enjoys cooking.

Steve has always been fascinated by eating pies. Here is Steve in earlier times.

This is Steve approximately mid-career in his pie eating. His Mom still keeps the trophies on her mantle.

Steve is ready for another day in his laboratory. He keeps his postiche at the office.

Steve kicks back with his favorite bunny slippers.

Eventually, Steve was forced to retire from the pie eating contest circuit as no pallet could be located rated for his size.

smstonypoint · Feb 10, 2014

dave1949 said:
As promised, to show my gratitude to Steve for his gracious featuring of me in his latest submission to The Journal of the American Mathematical Society, I have been collecting Steve Cam images that illustrate The Man Behind The Math - Steve at Home. It is my hope that through this series of candid vignettes, the true nature of Steve's humanity will be revealed. There is more to Steve, as you will discover, than his public existence as a quaint quant.

As I said, the probability that Dave would have zero delusions this week is very small, and the numbers never lie.

smstonypoint said:
No, zero is not excluded. The probability that you will have zero delusions per week is very small, but it is positive. My tentative estimate of lambda for your case is 14, so the estimated probability that you will have zero delusions this week is 8.31528719103568E-07. Steve

lilranch2001 · Feb 10, 2014

Dang, I wonder where Dave rounded up some of those pics.....
1, 4 and 6
I hope Dave wasn't thinking about someone ones wood in # 1
And asking #4 out on a date, and.....

#6 is just to weird to even fathom

dave1949 · Feb 10, 2014

lilranch2001 said:
Dang, I wonder where Dave rounded up some of those pics.....
1, 4 and 6
I hope Dave wasn't thinking about someone ones wood in # 1
And asking #4 out on a date, and.....

#6 is just to weird to even fathom

???? The pics are from the Steve Cam content, of course.

Once I was able to get it properly indexed and accessed with a great search engine, like Google does, it is a simple matter of--if you can think it, you will probably find it. Shocking, I know.

smstonypoint · Feb 10, 2014

I am providing some additional information to those of you who are scoring in your labs or at home.

My General Theory of Delusion predicts the number of delusions Dave will have during a week. That number is a random variable that follows a Poisson distribution with mean lambda. Based on his previous behavior, I have estimated lambda to be 14. I have tabulated predicted probabilities and they are shown below. To explain, the first column represents the number of potential observed delusions,k. The PMF column shows the probability that Dave will experience exactly k delusions during the week. To illustrate, the probability that Dave experiences exactly 14 delusions this week is 0.105989. The CDF column shows the probability that Dave will experience k or fewer delusions this week; e.g., the probability that Dave will experience 14 or fewer delusions this week is 0.570437. The probability that he will experience more than 14 delusions is 1-0.570437 = 0.429563

This is a "blind" test in that I have performed all of my work with a bag over my head and I will maintain that condition for the rest of the week. I would ask that Dave do the same so that we will have a "double-blind" test. I would also request that Dave not change his medication levels during the course of the experiment.

k PMF CDF
0 0.000001 0.000001
1 0.000012 0.000012
2 0.000081 0.000094
3 0.000380 0.000474
4 0.001331 0.001805
5 0.003727 0.005532
6 0.008696 0.014228
7 0.017392 0.031620
8 0.030436 0.062055
9 0.047344 0.109399
10 0.066282 0.175681
11 0.084359 0.260040
12 0.098418 0.358458
13 0.105989 0.464448
14 0.105989 0.570437
15 0.098923 0.669360
16 0.086558 0.755918
17 0.071283 0.827201
18 0.055442 0.882643
19 0.040852 0.923495
20 0.028597 0.952092
21 0.019064 0.971156
22 0.012132 0.983288
23 0.007385 0.990672
24 0.004308 0.994980
25 0.002412 0.997392
26 0.001299 0.998691
27 0.000674 0.999365
28 0.000337 0.999702

Scientifically yours,
Steve