Math knowledge of the general population?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by The Carnivore

Ouch!

Simple datastream: How many play the lottery?

Are they intending to donate to whatever the house is sponsoring, or do they instead think they might beat the house?

[retina]

Originally Posted by The Carnivore

Yeah, you're probably right. I did some research on this and can't believe how many people are bad at math:
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-high-a...hematical.html

Hey Siri, how much ... ?

Okay Google, what is ... ?

Alexa, ... ?

Why bother to learn anything when someone else has already done the hard work?

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Simple datastream: How many play the lottery?

Originally Posted by George Orwell

“The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory."

.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by retina

Why bother to learn anything when someone else has already done the hard work?

Do you do all your own original fundamental research and never look up anything?

[retina]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Simple datastream: How many play the lottery?

Not all draws have a negative expected return.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Do you do all your own original fundamental research and never look up anything?

I think there is a difference between learning new knowledge by "looking up stuff" and simply asking a "smart" speaker to tell you the answer to three plus two.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Do you do all your own original fundamental research and never look up anything?

I find myself under somewhat serious constraints. But, I believe I'm allowed to share what I myself have found and referenced.

Dogs Number was recently brought up, as was https://xkcd.com/936/.

P.S. That was an intentional dyslexic moment. "A Dyslexic stays awake thinking about if there really is a dog.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by chalsall

https://xkcd.com/936/

I noticed some very modern speed cubes in the video.
One of my passwords for an online service is >30 characters all alpha and very easy to remember.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by retina

I think there is a difference between learning new knowledge by "looking up stuff" and simply asking a "smart" speaker to tell you the answer to three plus two.

Now that is just haggling.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by The Carnivore

No calculators, equations, theorems, or math textbooks. If they can correctly answer that question in less than an hour and can correctly show how they got that answer, they'll get a $100 reward.

Under those conditions, what percentage of them do you think would win the $100? My guess is 10%, but I wonder what everyone here thinks.

I don't know, but I wouldn't try to do it under the stated conditions. I would use the theorem that a tangent to a circle is perpendicular to the radius at the point of tangency, the Pythagorean Theorem, and the equation used to state that theorem. (Then I would use a "small numbers" approximation to do the requisite calculations.)

[retina]

Originally Posted by The Carnivore

You're on a beach and see a cruise ship sailing away from you. The top of the ship is 158.4 feet / 0.03 miles above the ocean, and your eyes are 5.28 feet / 0.001 miles above the ocean. Assume that the Earth's diameter is 8,000 miles, that it's a clear day, and that there are no boats, islands, or other obstructions between you and the ship. How many miles will the ship be from you at the moment when the top of it disappears over the horizon and is no longer visible to you? Round your answer to one decimal place.

Insufficient information provided.

The light will bend as it travels through the atmosphere. We would need to know the current temperature gradient of the air to compute the amount of bending.

The ocean is unlikely to be perfectly still, so if there is some wave motion then the ship could periodically enter and leave the view due to waves obscuring the line of sight. Thus making it unclear exactly when the ship disappears over the horizon, since the horizon is the moving water.

During the time of travel for the ship the Moon will change position affecting the local height of the ocean. So presumably you need to adjust your eye position to maintain the 5.28 feet height. And the effective radius will change (either increase or decrease) from the stated 4000 miles.

[/pedantification of the puzzle]