Today, I was feeling a little naughty. I felt like it was time to stop being serious and have some fun at someone else's expense. So I visited omegle.com, the website for the free people of the world (mostly single men) whiling away time and looking for love! I too logged into its chat mode and starting the process of nexting others and getting nexted myself. As I have told previously, I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to break the social protocol of a chat. I started my chat not with a "Hi" or "Hello" or "ASL?" but rather with this rather amazingly simple question, "Hi, do you know what is the tenth power of 2?" .
Now, at this point you may be wondering one of two things. You could be passing a judgement on my moral character for admitting that I visited a chat site made for lovelorn single men, or giggling at my sacrilege of asking such a base math question on a hallowed forum of love. But whatever it is, you sure understand something explosive was about to happen! I did get the initial curse words which I totally understand. Math and sexual desires don't normally go well together. One of the guys even told me a flat, "I don't know". I was disappointed but I decided to dig deeper. After asking why, my chat friend told me because he was 16 and still in school. Now understand, the beauty of such a social network is that if you don't explicitly say that you are a guy, a male, M.. in someone's face they typically assume that they are talking to a female. And so, with a teacher at heart and no conceit intended, I coaxed him to recite the powers of 2 from 1 to 1024 using this subtle thread of uncertainty. I even coached him the next five powers of 2 and then bade him goodbye, which possibly broke his heart!
But the very next chat that I had, reminded me that there is a lot more intellect in the world than is visible. It felt to me like a wake-up call to buckle up to compete with the coming generation. In some ways it also felt like facing an alter-ego from the past. Take what you can from this conversation, but I find it very refreshing and reassuring. I wrote this post to share with you that sometimes you can find inspiration in the most unlikeliest of places. Here is how the chat went.
Now, at this point you may be wondering one of two things. You could be passing a judgement on my moral character for admitting that I visited a chat site made for lovelorn single men, or giggling at my sacrilege of asking such a base math question on a hallowed forum of love. But whatever it is, you sure understand something explosive was about to happen! I did get the initial curse words which I totally understand. Math and sexual desires don't normally go well together. One of the guys even told me a flat, "I don't know". I was disappointed but I decided to dig deeper. After asking why, my chat friend told me because he was 16 and still in school. Now understand, the beauty of such a social network is that if you don't explicitly say that you are a guy, a male, M.. in someone's face they typically assume that they are talking to a female. And so, with a teacher at heart and no conceit intended, I coaxed him to recite the powers of 2 from 1 to 1024 using this subtle thread of uncertainty. I even coached him the next five powers of 2 and then bade him goodbye, which possibly broke his heart!
But the very next chat that I had, reminded me that there is a lot more intellect in the world than is visible. It felt to me like a wake-up call to buckle up to compete with the coming generation. In some ways it also felt like facing an alter-ego from the past. Take what you can from this conversation, but I find it very refreshing and reassuring. I wrote this post to share with you that sometimes you can find inspiration in the most unlikeliest of places. Here is how the chat went.
You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi
You: Hey do you know what is the tenth power of 2?
Stranger: hold on
Stranger: 1024?
You: Yeah . Thanks. Howd you get it?
Stranger: or 10to the power
Stranger: oops
Stranger: mental.math
You: ok what is (sin x)\x as x approaches 0. :D
Stranger: I have no clue I'm only 14
Stranger: a 4.0 student
You: Good job. The answer for the second question is 1. You have to use L'opital's rule.
Stranger: oh ok
Stranger: I haven't.learned that yet
Stranger: ill use that though thanks
You: Do you know any function can be accurately represented by an addition of infinite number of sinusoids?
Stranger: No not yet
Stranger: anyway
Stranger: I'm barely heading to high school so
Stranger: yeah
You: Ok. Do you know probability?
Stranger: ish
Stranger: I remember a little
You: ok let me put you a question.. I haven't solved this myself .. How many ways can I distribute 5 chocolates among 3 kids
Stranger: 1 2/3 each
Stranger: have you solved it?
You: Good choice. But I am asking how many number of ways are there to distribute it to these 3 kids assuming you can' t break the chocolate
Stranger: Ohhh ok
Stranger: aren't there 2 ways?
Stranger: or more?
Stranger: ahh I lost it
You: There are many. You can give 5-0-0.. 4-1-0.. 4-0-1.. and so on..
Stranger: oh
You: Its tricky..
Stranger: well it wouldn't.be fair.to the others considering that you only have five and there are three so wouldn't you have to evenly split it to have equality and not have a fight break out
Stranger: between them
You: Well I am a mathematician not their mother. They can fight if they want to :D
Stranger: that's not what I meant though if you put it as a worldly problem then you'd have to
Stranger: like if they were poor
Stranger: they had no parents
Stranger: living off themselves
You: ok get it.
Stranger: yeah
You: You got me! But sometimes there can be a value in counting.
Stranger: yeah
You: For eg. if the kids were containers and I was counting how many ways can I arrange five cards in three containers.
You: Or put five oranges into 3 containers..
You: makes more sense
Stranger: yeah
Stranger: im more of a worldly problem solver so i take example of the world rather than what it gives me
Stranger: so that's why I was confused
You: hmm thats a good approach
Stranger: that's how I was thought
You: ok Lets start counting the ways. I think we can crack this.
You: If first kid gets 5. The others get 0 and 0.
Stranger: okay
You: That's 1 way.
You: 5-0-0.
Stranger: 4-1-0
Stranger: 3-1-1
You: Now 4-0-1 and 4-1-0 are there.
Stranger: 2-2-1
Stranger: 2-1-2
You: I suggest we take a systematic approach like first kid gets 5, then first kid gets 4, then first kid gets three and so on..
You: and count the ways to distribute the rest among the other two kids
Stranger: yeah I've already started
Stranger: I'm at 0-4-1
Stranger: there are twenty one ways
Stranger: so far
You: 21 ways
Stranger: yes
You: yeah I think thats it
Stranger: there could be more if you were to take fractions in it
You: Yeah then it could be infinite assuming you could make infinitely small fractions.
Stranger: yeah
Stranger: wait how old are you may I ask?
You: 26.
Stranger: are you a teacher?
You: No, I'm a PhD student .
Stranger: oh well that's great!:)
You: Do you know what a PhD is?
Stranger: yes sort of
Stranger: my principal had one
You: ok yeah its the highest "degree" one can get before you get kicked out of school
You: But it was nice lerning with you today.
You: What class are you in?
Stranger: heading to 9th
You: are you preparing for any olympiads?
Stranger: No but I have to go thank you for teaching me that
Stranger has disconnected.
So, who's the teacher?
