Going Beyond the Chicken and the Egg – Paradoxes to Ponder

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Photo: Ruben Alexander

Almost everyone has heard the paradox “which came first, the chick or the egg?” That was so 2nd grade. Here are some others for you to think about:

Zeno’s paradox: “In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.” This is also known as Achilles and the Tortoise. If Achilles (fast) is racing a tortoise (slow), but the tortoise is given a mile head start, by the time Achilles has reached where the tortoise has begun, the tortoise has advanced a measurable distance X. In the time it takes Achilles to cover the distance X to where the tortoise currently is, the tortoise will have gone another measurable distance Y. This will go on infinitely so that Achilles will come close, but never actually pass the tortoise.

Mpemba paradox: “Hot water can, under certain conditions, freeze faster than cold water, even though it must pass the lower temperature on the way to freezing.” If you have two cups of water – one at 95 degrees and one at 45 – and place them in the freezer, shockingly the hotter cup will freeze first. Check out the link for insight into why and the story of the high school kid it was named after.

The Pinocchio paradox: “What would happen if Pinocchio said ‘My nose will be growing’?” An awesome version of the classic “This sentence is false” paradox.

Drinker paradox: “In any pub there is a customer such that, if he or she drinks, everybody in the pub drinks.” Either everyone in the pub is drinking , or at least one person in the pub isn’t drinking. On the one hand, suppose everyone is drinking. For any particular person, it can’t be wrong to say that if that particular person is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking — because everyone is drinking. Suppose, on the other hand, at least one person isn’t drinking. For that particular person, it still can’t be wrong to say that if that particular person is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking — because that person is, in fact, not drinking. Either way, there is someone in the pub such that, if they are drinking, everyone in the pub is drinking. Something to talk about next time you are in a pub not drinking.

Go on to Part Deux for more.

This post comes at you all the way from Berlin, Germany. I’m having a great time and will return home with plenty of stories one week from today.

Exploding Lakes! – The Worlds Deadliest Lake

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Photo: Jack Lockwood

I incorrectly had lakes on my list of things that don’t explode. (Yes, I do have lists like this on long rolls of parchment.) Well turns out I’m wrong – there are three exploding lakes on our crazy planet.

Lake Nyos in Cameroon is the second largest at about 390 acres, but more importantly it is the deadliest lake according to The Guinness Book of World Records (people that actually do keep track of that stuff). One would think that a deadly lake would be one that drowns a lot of people. Maybe some rip tides or something. Nope. Exploding lakes are much deadlier.

So how do lakes explode? Hot magma under Lake Nyos leaks carbon dioxide into the water, saturating it with an estimated 90 million tonnes of CO2 (a tonne is a metric ton or, equal to 2205 lbs). Most of the time this is not an issue – the CO2 sits in the water quite peacefully. But over time the water because supersaturated and a change in the environment can lead to large amounts of CO2 splurging out of the water.

And this is exactly what happened on one unlucky day in 1986. A volcanic eruption or landslide forced over 80 million cubic meters of CO2 into the air at once. This is the equivalent of 80,000 Americans’ CO2 emissions for an entire year entering the atmosphere at once. It was so forceful it knocked down the nearby trees and caused a tital wave over 80 feet high. From the Washington post:

The effect was similar to rapidly uncapping an agitated bottle of beer. Only in this case, the bottle was a mile and a quarter long, three-quarters of a mile wide and 610 feet deep, with five times as much carbonation.

The gas spilled over the lip of the lake into the valley below, displacing all the air surrounding air on the way. Since CO2 is roughly 1.5 times thicker than air, it hugged the earth and suffocated anyone unlucky enough to be sleeping in the low points within 16 miles of the lake. A 50 meter high cloud of CO2 traveled through the night silently killing 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock.

Rather than leaving you on that depressing note, you will be glad to hear that they are taking measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again. There have been pipes installed to bring some of the deepest water up to the surface – the goal being to agitate the water enough so that it never again becomes supersaturated with CO2.

Flipper Committed Suicide – Not the Only Take Away From “The Cove”

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Photo: Pug Father

The Academy Award winner for last year’s best documentary was The Cove. I recommend it to each and every one of my readers – it is a combination of a government conspiracy theory, undercover espionage, and educational-activist-type documentary. The film focuses on a small fishing village in Japan that kills over 20,000 dolphins a year.

I won’t give much away, but I wanted to write a little bit about the films main character, Ric O’Barry. Ric was the person that made dolphins famous back in the 1960’s – he was the trainer for the 5 dolphins used on the TV show Flipper. He also went on to become the most outspoken critic of dolphin captivity.

Why the change of heart? In 1970, the main dolphin used in Flipper committed suicide. Wait… what? Ric O’Barry was very close to the dolphins he trained and maintains he could tell their emotions through body language. The dolphin swam up to Ric that fateful day, looked him in the eye, and took her last breath, deciding not to take another. He believes the dolphin committed suicide because of its depression living in captivity.

How likely is this? Keep in mind we are not talking about humans who breathe unconsciously. Dolphins don’t always have access to air to breathe – they spend most of their time under water, unable to take in oxygen. They must consciously return to the surface to breathe. Thus, this is certainly plausible and I am inclined to give Ric the benefit of the doubt.

If dolphins (and whales for that matter) have to consciously tell themselves to take a breath when they are out of air, how do they sleep? My guess would be that they would draw in a large breath and take a quick nap before returning back to the top for more air. But how what if they don’t wake up in time? DEAD! Turns out they have a “semi-sleeping” state where they effectively shut off half of their brain at a time. They are still conscious enough to rise to the surface for a breath, but asleep enough to rest. Dolphins spend roughly 8 hours a day in this state.

Worst Parents in the World? – Two Year Old Goes to Rehab to Quit Smoking

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The youngest person ever has finished rehab – what a great success story! After 3 months in rehab, a two year old Indonesian boy has successfully kicked his smoking habit. Allegedly, he began smoking at 11 months old when his father gave him a cigarette to help ease a headache. By the time he was 2 years of age, he was smoking 2 packs a day!

Ok, maybe under these special circumstances, completing rehab with flying colors is not a success story. What an epic failure of parents! How can they be such morons? You parents out there that give into your babies anytime a tear is shed – I hope you are strong enough to hold out if your kid was begging for a cigarette. It’s hard to believe anyone can be the perfect combination of a pushover and ignoramus, let alone both parents!

If the family could continue to afford 2 packs a day and the Indonesian government hadn’t step in, I’m sure this kid would still be puffing away. But this story also delivers a great deal of hope. Hope because we now live in a world where it is no longer a possibility to be the worst parent – unless you actively try to do worse than these two Indonesians, I am quite sure you will surpass their low bar.

What Are the Odds Two People in the Room Have the Same Birthday?

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Photo: surlygirl

Situations arise from time to time where you are in a room with a whole bunch of strangers. They key to making friends and the opposite sex swoon? Probability.

What are the odds that two people in the room have the same birthday? Memorize some of these numbers so that you can spout them off, I guarantee you will be the coolest guy in the room – 9 people = 10%, 13 = 20%, 15 = 25%, 18 = 35%, 23 = 51%, 57 = 99%, 366 = 100%.

It’s important that you mention the assumptions before your new worshipers start poking holes in you numbers – random distribution of birthdays, no leap years, no twins, etc. Then you can go into what is interesting – with only 23 people in the room, odds are two people share a birthday. It only takes 57 people to jump to 99% probability, but to get to 100% you need to have 366 people.

Now to really make their mouths drop. How many people would it take for the odds to be in your favor for someone having the same birthday as you? 253. They may question you because this is much higher than 365/2, but stick to your guns and point out that two of the other people could have the same birthday. How many people would it take for two to likely have a birthday within a week of each other? Only 7. Ya, but a random distribution is a hell of an assumption. Oh really? Actually the odds are slightly more in your favor because birthdays tend to clump – summer babies, C-sections aren’t on weekends, and so on.

Here’s one to set up on a tee for them: what are the odds that two people have the same half birthday? If they can figure this out, you may just have found your soulmate.

One or Two Spaces After the Period – How Wikipedia Handled the Ultimate Question

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Photo: Kevin Spencer

While typing, how many spaces do you put after a period? I was taught to hit the spacebar twice after the end of a sentence. Turns out not everyone does this. I knew there were single spacers out there, but I thought they were heretical troglodytes. Then I saw this poll result: with a huge sample of 44,000 people, 47% use a single space!

How does this happen? I go for soooo long thinking almost everyone was on the same page, but in reality it is split down the middle.

Once I got over my ignorance as to how the rest of the world operates, I needed to know – how did Wikipedia standardize on which one to use? Obviously if you are going to embark on an monumental distributed encyclopedia, all authors should agree to either use single or double space. I could see this holding up the entire project and just turning into a huge debate to settle it once and for all. Propitiously, the HTML of web pages renders on the screen the same way whether you do a single space or ten spaces. Problem averted.

  • It turns out the double space is a holdover from the typewriter days when fonts were monospaced. Utterly useless now and really dating me beyond my years.

  • With my lofty aspiration to be the most efficient human alive, I must cut out the extraneous second space. I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

  • Here is something else I found even more eye opening (although I will not discuss my personal proclivity): Sitters vs. Standers – The Great Wipe Hope

The Only Person with Immortal Cells – Henrietta Lacks

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In 1951 a young black woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks died of cancer. Her cancer was unlike any seen before, or since, and has transformed modern medicine – her cells are immortal!

Henrietta’s miraculous cancer cells reproduce outside of the body – in a culture dish cells typically only divide a few times before they die, but hers have been alive for almost 60 years! Scientists found the incredibly fast growth rate of her cancer grew just as fast indefinitely in a test tube. They believed her cells held the key to curing cancer and even making humans immortal – unfortunately these have yet to happen.

Her cells, called the HeLa cell line, have been sent all over the world for testing, and even out of this world (as in outer space). Never before was it possible to do long term tests on human cells without testing on an actual human – the cell line would die after a couple days outside of the body. With the HeLa line this was suddenly possible. It has been used for testing the first Polio vaccine, as well as research into cancer, AIDS, radiation effects, sensitivity to toxic substances, gene mapping, and many other medical causes.

Today over 20 tons of her cells exist in petri dishes scattered across the globe. It’s amazing that after all this time, doctors still have not discovered why the HeLa cells behave unlike any others. In the last 60 years Henrietta Lack’s cells have been instrumental in advancing modern medicine – potentially in the next 60 years they will even help find a cure for cancer.

Keep reading …

Outsourcing Drive Thru Jobs

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Photo: LWY

Here’s something may be a shock to you: when you pull up to a fast food, you might be talking someone in a call center thousands of miles away! It turns out numerous fast food chains have been experimenting with this over the last five years. If you are at a Wendy’s you might be talking to someone in Delaware, Jack in the Box to the Phillippines or Texas, or McDonald’s to India.

These companies claim the benefits are shorter wait times and less mistakes due to a further division of labor where each person can focus on one menial task. Well, maybe they don’t say it quite like that. It is hard to tell the extent to which this system is currently deployed in the United States – after a flurry of news stories about this experiment 4-5 years ago, the fast food companies have not informed the public how it has gone. My suspicion is that they strategically expanded the program nationwide to select franchises, specifically ones with multiple drive thru lines or notoriously hard to understand operators.

Happier With Less Choices – The Magic of Fewer Options

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Photo: i_yudai

The conclusion of a book I read this year resonated with me, and since completion I have noticed it keeps popping up in my life – that sometimes more options can have a negative effect on a decision. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz argues that if you have three choices, the consequences of adding a fourth choice will outweigh the utility of another option.

How can this be? This fourth option may be better than the other three, and if it is not, then it can simply be disregarded and you are back at three choices. Yes, that is a logical conclusion, but humans are not perfectly rational. First, this additional option will require further effort on your part to compare it to the others – if the choices are all very similar this can be excruciatingly difficult. More importantly, additional options provide the opportunity to second guess your decision. Schwartz illustrates in the book that the doubt in your mind introduced by more options will result in you being less content with the outcome.

The Jam Study
Two psychologists put this hypothesis to the test to find out if more choices can have negative effects on the decision. One study they ran was to setup a table of jam samples at a grocery store – sometimes they displayed 6 flavors and other times 24. While they found that more choices of jam incited a greater number of shoppers to sample, they were ten times more likely to buy with less choices and “reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections.”

The Paralysis of Analysis
The book lumps individuals into two categories: those who want the absolute best, and those who are happy with the first option that meets their requirements. Can you guess which group is happier with their outcome? Even if the perfectionist chooses a marginally better jam, they still are not as satisfied with their choice and have wasted a great deal of time.

Investing is a great example of this principle – we all know we are supposed to invest our money as early as possible to take advantage of the miracle of compound interest. But we also know that a 9% return is a whole lot better than 5%. If possible we should strive for 9%. Before we realize what has happened, the paralysis of analysis has taken hold, we have stalled looking for the perfect safe place to invest our money, and we are 45 without any investments. Just pick the first good investment that comes your way (there will always be better, no matter how much time you put into it), pick it now, and be happy!

Keep reading…

Andre the Giant – All That is Man

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This installment of All That is Man is quite different than the last. Bruce Lee was a tiny little man and Andre the Giant was, well, a giant. He stood an approximate 7 feet, 4 inches and weighed in around 520 pounds. Although not as quick as Bruce Lee, he was incredibly agile for a man his size, as you can see in some of his wrestling highlights. There are three reasons Andre is tops on the man food chain: his size, eating abilities, and drinking accomplishments.

Andre the Giant had acromegaly – a syndrome where the pituitary gland overproduces growth hormone. It provided him a natural and steady stream of hGH that would have made Barry Bonds jealous. Unfortunately, this led to many health issues and he spent most of his life in pain – knees, back, heart, and more. He chose not to undergo treatment (most likely because the damage had already been done?) and died at age 46.

Men eat a lot of food. They even have challenges to see who can eat the most food. It would have phenomenal to see Andre the Giant take part in an endurance food competition. There are numerous stories where he would go to a restaurant and order almost everything on the menu. Or he would go to one restaurant, eat a three course meal, then head straight to another restaurant, eat again, then head to another restaurant. I don’t think the standard 2000 calorie diet nutrition facts applied to him.

The number one legacy Andre the Giant has left on the internet is he drinking ability. Boy did he love to drink. (Although it is sad. He couldn’t fit in normal sized entertainment venues so he spent most of his nights on the road in bars. He was also in chronic pain most his life and used alcohol as a crutch.) There are stories of Andre finishing 119 beers in one sitting, or even more depending upon the source. How about finishing a case of wine on a long bus ride. Here is one story that sums it up:

French doctors who were to operate on Andre’s back devised a method for determining how much anesthesia to administer to someone based on the person’s tolerance for alcohol. They asked Andre what it took to get him drunk and he couldn’t answer. He told them it took two liters of vodka “just to make him feel warm inside.”

Along with all these feats, he also starred in the Princess Bride toward the tail end of his career. It is a terrific movie of which he was extremely proud. One other fun fact for you: Andre the Giant actually signed his checks “Andre the Giant” rather than his given name – that’s when you know a nickname has stuck!