Guest PikaPerson01 Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 Supposing you have single bacteria in a bottle, and every minute this bacteria splits in half - essentially doubling itself. Now suppose it takes an hour for the bottle to be completely full of this bacteria. At 11am there is 1 bacteria and at 12 noon the bottle is completely full. At what time is the bottle half full? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemniscate Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 11:59 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizzi Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 11:30 AM - it's pretty obvious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JG. Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 11:59 This, duh. Obvious answer is obvious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemniscate Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 11:30 AM - it's pretty obvious No, if every minutes it doubles itself, and at 12:00 noon it fills the container, the minute before that it would have half-filled the container, thus, it's 11:59. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PikaPerson01 Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 11:59 Correct. Neither of the bacteria will realize this problem until, literally, the very last minute. Now... translating this simple arithmetic analogy into something like population growth or oil use... We may however propose another question. Suppose the bacteria go on a legendary trip, and find 3 new bottles, essentially quadrupling the amount of resources they have ever known. At what time will they fill the fourth bottle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemniscate Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 12:02, but really that is more of a trick question, as you didn't give the casualty rate of the trip, or the amount of time it took to complete. Also, trying to connect a population growth problem to the Hubbard Peak is really funny. Oil supply is a bell curve, obviously, at some point we will run out, but that doesn't justify not using it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PikaPerson01 Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 Also' date=' trying to connect a population growth problem to the Hubbard Peak is really funny. Oil supply is a bell curve, obviously, at some point we will run out, but that doesn't justify not using it now.[/quote'] Smart kid. I like you already. =D The justification should be that the only way to keep the current amount of oil we have would be to greatly limit the rate of consumption. The only way to do that would be to either ration the petroleum supply, which seems unlikely, or find a way to limit population growth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizzi Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 11:30 AM - it's pretty obvious No' date=' if every minutes it doubles itself, and at 12:00 noon it fills the container, the minute before that it would have half-filled the container, thus, it's 11:59.[/quote'] XD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemniscate Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 Also' date=' trying to connect a population growth problem to the Hubbard Peak is really funny. Oil supply is a bell curve, obviously, at some point we will run out, but that doesn't justify not using it now.[/quote'] Smart kid. I like you already. =D The justification should be that the only way to keep the current amount of oil we have would be to greatly limit the rate of consumption. The only way to do that would be to either ration the petroleum supply, which seems unlikely, or find a way to limit population growth. Why do we want to keep the current amount of oil we have? Conservation doesn't fix the problem, now or in the future. Oil isn't produced quickly, so for billions of years, the problem for everyone would be exactly the same, and oil would still not be consumed, by the same reasoning. It is really a solution without a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥ ЅϯᵲåώӀӞ℮ᴙʀɣ−ɴɨɨ−ƈħåɴ ♥ Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 How is this a "business" riddle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeREVOLUTION Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 How is this a "business" riddle? Most jobs are very serious. Didn't know that they were THIS serious D: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~/Coolio Prime\~ Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 How is this a "business" riddle? A "Serious Business" riddle, as it relates to exponential population growth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Mousy Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 We have hit, what we economists call, peak oil, where the the difference in supply of oil let say from t1 to t2 (how much we are extracting from t1 to t2) is smaller than the difference of demand from t1 to t2. Therefore, we are finding less oil to meet the growing demand. You know what? That's just going to drive the demand up. If you see that, if there was a sale on pancakes for 1 cent per say, at Wall-Mart, then you 'expect' it to run out at such a price, therefore, driving the demand up. Given the current market, rationing oil is disrupting the supply / demand signal, which will result in someone saying "Are you Socialist?". Humans will value the accuracy of such a signal, until the 'last minute' when it will figure out something is wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Lining Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 How is this a "business" riddle? It's called sarcasm. You should look it up some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Mousy Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 No it's not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~ P O L A R I S ~ Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 Suppose everyone finds a partner of the opposite sex with whom they can have intercourse less than a minute from when they're born (let's forget puberty), the intercourse and birth making up the rest of that minute, and suppose each pairing has 4 children, which are all born within that minute. Now suppose that population growth doesn't work like that. Steps've already been taken in certain countries to limit the number of children a couple can have, preferably to 2 or less. One can only hope other countries will follow suit. Were this to be a strictly enforced global law, we'd have our solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Mousy Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 He's referring to oil consumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~ P O L A R I S ~ Posted October 20, 2009 Report Share Posted October 20, 2009 Oil can be replaced by renewable power sources, so it's all good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Mousy Posted October 21, 2009 Report Share Posted October 21, 2009 Petroleum, Plastic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~ P O L A R I S ~ Posted October 21, 2009 Report Share Posted October 21, 2009 Petroleum' date=' Plastic?[/quote'] Cars can run on solar power and electricity, which'll likely work better than they did as we have time to develop them as car fuel before we run out of oil. Plastic's versatile and cheap, but all it does another material can also do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Mousy Posted October 21, 2009 Report Share Posted October 21, 2009 That's all easier said than done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest King of Games Posted October 21, 2009 Report Share Posted October 21, 2009 The development of ethanol from corn and other crops as an alternate fuel source has been increasing. Which can help fill some of the demand. However, the crops are taken from land bought in third world countries, where there is very little demand for fuel and large demand for food. The ironic part is, the crops being turned into fuel can probably feed a lot of those starving countries, especially the people actually growing the crops. Had a discussion about this in school today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Mousy Posted October 21, 2009 Report Share Posted October 21, 2009 The refusal of russia / china / canada, etc to sign the Kyoto accord signifies something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemniscate Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 Yes, that growing nations understand the harmful economic effects of limiting fuel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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