Chance News 10: Difference between revisions
| Line 12: | Line 12: | ||
===Logarithmetic behavior as metaphor=== | ===Logarithmetic behavior as metaphor=== | ||
For many years Ed Barbeau has edited a wonderful column | For many years Ed Barbeau has edited a wonderful column in the '' College Mathematics Journal'' called Fallacies, Flaws, and Flimflam. In | ||
Ed's column in the November 2005 issue of the Journal | Ed's column in the November 2005 issue of the ''College Math Journal'' Norton Starr provides a contribution called "Logarithmic behaviour as metaphor". Norton provides examples from a wide variety of writers saying that something is growing Logarrithmically when they meant it is growing exponentially. | ||
Noton says that he became interested in this when a convocation speaker at his college (Amerherst) said: | |||
< | |||
==item3== | ==item3== | ||
==item4== | ==item4== | ||
Revision as of 19:33, 28 November 2005
Quotation
The weather man is never wrong. Suppose he says that there's an 80% chance of rain. If it rains, the 80% chance came up; if it doesn't, the 20% chance came up! - Saul Barron .
From: Stastical Quotations
Forsooth
Literary License
"'Four million ... heard it. Ten percent remember it. One percent of those matter. One percent of those do something about it. That's still' - he does the math - 'four people.'" From: _The Betrayal_, by Sabin Willett, NY: Villard (Random House), 1998.
Submitted by Margaret Cibes
Logarithmetic behavior as metaphor
For many years Ed Barbeau has edited a wonderful column in the College Mathematics Journal called Fallacies, Flaws, and Flimflam. In Ed's column in the November 2005 issue of the College Math Journal Norton Starr provides a contribution called "Logarithmic behaviour as metaphor". Norton provides examples from a wide variety of writers saying that something is growing Logarrithmically when they meant it is growing exponentially.
Noton says that he became interested in this when a convocation speaker at his college (Amerherst) said: <