Deadlines met

"My speech will be like the old woman's dance, short and sweet"--Young Mr. Lincoln

Well, I finished the Frost collection on Saturday night, though I skipped his two masque plays. (I finished Ten Lost Years yesterday, with three days to spare.) Yesterday afternoon the Classic Book Club discussed Frost, and we ended up reciting a lot of his poems, which was something new.  A newbie called Karen is really enthusiastic about the group.  Frost with his sensibility reminds me of my mother.

Last week I saw a documentary at the Bloor about the Barbican estate in London.  The Museum of London is located near there, but didn't get mentioned.  I was thinking that it's time for me to visit London, probably in May.

Friday the History Discussion Group screened John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln, which I've seen quite a few times.  It's Henry Fonda's first great role!

Yesterday on Youtube there was a video about this puzzle they give to engineering applicants:  an alien arrives on earth, and each day the aliens on earth have a 1/4 chance that you'll die, a 1/4 chance that you won't die or reproduce, a 1/4 chance that you'll reproduce one alien, and a 1/4 chance that you'll reproduce two.  What are the odds that the aliens will die out on earth?  I guessed 40%, which wasn't so far off from the right answer, which is the square root of two minus one, or about 41.4%.

The puzzle intrigued me so much that I did some more figuring.  The chance that they'll die out in the first two days is 85/256, just under 1/3.  The chance that they won't increase is 112/256, or 43.75%.  The chance that they'll go from one to either two or three will be 76/256, or close to 30%, so the chance of a bigger increase will be the remainder, or something over 26%.  And the chance of dying out in three days is something under 37%.

In the long run, once the alien population gets critical mass the trend will become more predictable.  They'll increase about 50% every day, which virtually guarantees doubling after two days, tripling after three days and quintupling after four days.  I love numbers!