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Tuesday, Dec 04, 2012 - 22:18 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Exactly As Described

I was trying to get some useful work done, while suppressing the persistent cough that latched onto me after my return from Japan, when Mr. Ham walked in with a big grin on his face.

Mr. Ham: Howdy do, pardner?

Me: So-so, none of the medication's been very effective, but at least one of them had the foresight to include a teacup-sized measuring cup instead of the usual double-headed spoon. Hard to fill those spoons without spillage.

Mr. Ham: Well, this is for you.

*Mr. Ham chucks a couple of sheets of paper on the table*

Me: *adjusting glasses* This looks like an exact solution for the mutually nearest hamster problem, recently presented here and then critiqued by a mysterious, totally unknown but assuredly hamsome and wise anonymous reviewer for only being an approximation that works with large n.

I was about to re-attempt it when I found the time - can't go running off for ready-made answers every time, no? - but it seems like you've saved me the trouble, and defeated the purpose. But, aren't you a mathphobe?

Mr. Ham: Whoa, easy there. I'm not a fan of math for math's sake, but every now and then a problem catches my eye. Plus, I couldn't get all the effort that went towards queueing a thousand hamsters out of my mind. "Oxnard, stop eating and get back in line!" "Bucky, quit jumping about!" "Rhino, get over here and draw your number from the box!"

No sir, there is no way I will try to stage that again, but there was also no way that I was going to quit with anything but a fully correct answer after the trouble I went to. I know you're a speciest human, but I can be extremely analytical when I want to.

Me: Forty percent of that, certainly.

Mr. Ham: I'll be honest, I know my limitations - my mind wanders too much, I'm not fast at shifting symbols, I'm not very careful, I don't trust things I can't see, and I sure as heck wouldn't know what beta distributions and gamma functions are without reading the definitions off Wikipedia.

But I did have the conviction that the problem could be solved satisfactorily with nothing but high school math, or at least as few advanced concepts as could be managed, and I further had modern equipment on my side. Huge processing power to check part solutions, for one.

Me: Was the name of one of your other pieces of modern equipment "Mr. Robo", by any chance?

Mr. Ham: Let us not sweat the small details.

Me: So what's the basic idea?

Mr. Ham: Well, the key is still recognizing that all permutations of distances between hamsters are equally probable, and then arguing exhaustively over them all, treating the boundary and intermediate cases separately. It finally boils down to proving:


but for the details you really should look at the paper. It's just four pages.

Me: Well, whether it turns out to be right, I've got to hand it to you, Mr. Ham. I didn't think you had it in you.

Mr. Ham: Eh, just because I'm an asshole doesn't mean that I'm dumb, man. And oh, I stand by my opinion on quant jobs in general, not that I have anything against them.



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