General Trivia

ArotosMarkos · Post by **ArotosMarkos** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:29 am

Deandra, you are thinking by the principal that if you have a brown paper bag with three white marbles and two red, you have a 3/5 chance of a whtie for your first try. If you reveal a white marble, then you do not put it back in the bag and have a 1/2 chance of drawing one again.

I am prety sure that genetics is more of a "you-put-the-marble-back-in-the-bag" ordeal.

If you have a 3/5 chance the first time, you have a 3/5 chance the next.

weka · Post by **weka** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:32 am

Yep, that is true, unless the first child had had green eyes, then it would be a whole diff story cause it would have proven the existance of the recessive green.

Deandra · Post by **Deandra** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:36 am

Ok, if the two kids' eye colors were independent events, then it wouldn't matter. Weka just pointed out exactly why they aren't independent, since if my daughter had green eyes, the probability would change for the 2nd kid.

In both cases, the probability changes as you get more information, just that in the case of her having brown eyes, it's more subtle.

ArotosMarkos · Post by **ArotosMarkos** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:34 am

Well, let's find out.
Deandra, you go talk to your husband and we'll find out in nine months. xD

Deandra · Post by **Deandra** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:21 am

Btw the genetics thing was supposed to be the punitive question, we're still looking for a noun for unshod people, right?

Masser · Post by **Masser** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:46 am

Discalced?

ragged-gothic · Post by **ragged-gothic** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:56 am

Deandra wrote:Ragoth:

Weka already came up with the 2/3 chance of brown eyes answer, and then, as now, I say that it would be correct if I didn't already have a child, but since I already do have one with brown eyes, it would not be correct for my 2nd child (assuming I planned to get pregnant again, which I don't hehe).

ArotosMarkos wrote:Deandra, you are thinking by the principal that if you have a brown paper bag with three white marbles and two red, you have a 3/5 chance of a whtie for your first try. If you reveal a white marble, then you do not put it back in the bag and have a 1/2 chance of drawing one again.

I am prety sure that genetics is more of a "you-put-the-marble-back-in-the-bag" ordeal.

If you have a 3/5 chance the first time, you have a 3/5 chance the next.

My understanding of genetics is that the probabilities work much as ArotosMarkos suggests. Having one child of a given condition (brown eyes) should not materially effect the chances of either condition occurring in subsequent children, because the change in factors is so minor compared with the Mendelian probabilities. I have read, frex, that if you were to compare all possible genetic combinations that a given man and woman could produce, they would have to have children numbering in the tens of trillians

before they ran out of possible combinations.

If the genetic difference were set by the woman in question (i.e. the woman had the (bg) genotype and her husband had the (gg) genotype, it might be possible to calculate how having one brown eyed child would effect the chances of other children having green or brown eyes, but, I believe, to make such a calculation, we would need the total number of menstruations in the woman’s reproductive life, as well as the ages that she

reached menarchy
had her first (brown eyed) child
and intended to conceive her second child

Then we could calculate from her finite number of egg cells how the probability would change by having a brown eyed child.

Since, however, the question posits that the husband is the one who has the (bg) genotype, and the wife the (gg) genotype, the previous paragraph’s conditions do not apply. In the given case, all egg cells will contain the recessive (g) gene. In human biology, the man constantly produces sperm cells and these cells actually have a short life...a number of days. In addition, of course, each ejaculation contains millions of sperm cells. Since the first child takes nine months to develop in utero, the husband’s body will have completely recycled its base sperm cell count long before the child is born – in effect the probabilities are reset to base condition. Even if the second child is conceived within a month (unlikely) of the first child’s birth, the chances of a brown or green eyed baby will beexactly the same, by my calculations and the conditions as given, as for the first child.

Therefore I stand by my original conclusion of 66.6% chance of a brown eyed child and 33.3% chance of a green eyed child. If there is some factor which I have not taken into account, then I, respectfully, ask that Deandra or someone else, indicate that factor and explain how it effects the probabilities, since I cannot see any way that any other factor could.

weka wrote:Yep, that is true, unless the first child had had green eyes, then it would be a whole diff story cause it would have proven the existance of the recessive green.

Finally, just as an aside, the recessive gene for green eyes was given as part of the initial conditions of the problem.

Deandra wrote:Let's assume people in my family can have only brown eyes or green eyes, and that eye color comes from a single gene, and if you have a green-eyed gene and a brown-eyed gene, your eyes will be brown. If you have green eyes, you must have two green-eyed genes.

The description given elucidates conditions only possible if the brown (b) gene is dominant and the green (g) gene is recessive.

Deandra · Post by **Deandra** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:05 am

Edit: The thought of analyzing infinite sperm made me forget that I have absolutely no reason to be rude. Especially not when you took a lot of time to explain your ideas like that. Sorry.

DorostheConqueror · Post by **DorostheConqueror** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:24 am

So which is the question we're answering?

DorostheConqueror · Post by **DorostheConqueror** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:29 am

ArotosMarkos wrote:I know it isn't my turn, but I have a question for you all.
I am going to post two pictures of John Lennon. These pictures, however, are only half-pictures, with (a) celebrity(s) also with him.
Whoever can tell me who is with him in the original pictures wins!

The bottom one is Yoko and former Canadian Prime Minister Somebody Something, and the top one is... uhh, Yoko and Micky Dolenz.

-edit- Just Googled it. Pierre Trudeau is the Hoser PM.

-edit edit- And by Micky Dolenz, I of course meant Bill "Fuzzy" Finkleman, seen sporting his trademark facial hair there in the back, behind some no-name shmuck whom nobody cared about then, and nobody cared about in 2004. Yoko is, obviously, cunningly disguised as a cap on John's head.

Deandra · Post by **Deandra** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:49 am

Deandra wrote:What is the word for a person who walks around barefoot? (a single word noun)

DorostheConqueror · Post by **DorostheConqueror** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:51 am

Oh, yeah, hippie. I thought that one already got answered!

The Tourist · Post by **The Tourist** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:29 am

[intermission]

Q; What's orange and looks good on hippies?

A; Fire!!

[end of intermission]

ragged-gothic · Post by **ragged-gothic** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 8:02 am

Deandra wrote:Lol.

Sorry, but I think you misunderstand why the probability would be different.

Forget the marbles, ok? It's just confusing you. Kids aren't marbles.

I believe that this post is both unfair to my reasoning and insulting to me. I am not “confused”. You have not addressed the analysis of your question which I have painstakingly taken time and effort to provide. You have not addressed at all the further explanation I have taken time to support my original analysis with. All you’ve done is simply say I was wrong, without any supporting evidence or critique. You’ve also done so in, what comes across to me, as a rather flip and dismissive way. I expect that if I take the time to respond in specific detail to a question you pose, that if you disagree with my response, that you should respect me and my efforts enough to do so specifically, addressing my points. Since you would rather just dismiss and insult me, I refuse to participate any further in a discussion with you.

Deandra · Post by **Deandra** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:29 am

I'm sorry, I think it was the image of analyzing infinite amounts of sperm that threw me off.

Here's the thing. If you have a bag of marbles, take one out, check the color, and don't put it back in the bag, then it changes the chance of getting another of that color when you get another marble. We both understand why this is so, so I won't go over it.

This isn't the case in reproduction at all. Regardless of whether or not there's an infinite supply of eggs or sperm, the chromosomes chosen for each one are selected independently. The point is that we don't know what the genes of these cells are, and all we have to go on is the information I gave originally.

Ok, so I just stated that the genes are selected independently, so how can I also claim that the probability changes from one child to the next? The issue is that I don't know my hubby's genes, and they could be either BB or Bg. The first child gives me evidence that it's one or the other.

If my daughter had green eyes, we'd know right away that my hubby's genes are Bg. So in that case:

p(1st child has green eyes) = 1/3 and
p(2nd child has green eyes | 1st child has green eyes) = 1/2

As you can see, these events are not independent, or else they would both be equal.

Now, the overall probability that the 2nd child will have green eyes does not change, if you don't know the color of the 1st child's eyes. If you trust me on that point, you'll see how I got this:

p(1st w/ g) = 1/3
p(2nd w/ g) = 1/3

p(1st w/ g & 2nd w/ g) = x
p(1st w/ b & 2nd w/ g) = 1/3 - x
Because we know that these events are mutually exclusive, and the total p(2nd w/ g) has to equal 1/3

Let's solve for x:
Once you know that the 1st one is g, the 2nd child has a 1 in 2 chance of also having green eyes. So p(1st w/ g & 2nd w/ g) = 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6

Plugging in x = 1/6, you get:
p(1st w/ b & 2nd w/ g) = 1/6

Now we need to find
p(2nd w/ g GIVEN 1st w/ b)

We can use this handy formula courtesy of wikipedia's page on conditional probability:

so p(2nd w/ g GIVEN 1st w/ b) = p(1st w/ b & 2nd w/ g) / p (1st w/ b)
= (1/6) / (2 / 3) = 1/4

but I asked for the p(my 2nd child has brown eyes) not p(my 2nd child has green eyes) so we do

p(2nd w/ b GIVEN 1st w/ b) = 1 - 1/4 = 3/4

So I'm saying that it is now MORE likely for me to have a brown-eyed kid, since my 1st kid has brown eyes.

If this is hard to picture, imagine I had some kind of disastrous encounter with fertility drugs and now had 10 kids (non of them identical twins). All of them have brown eyes. The chance of that happening if my hubby has the green eye gene is extraordinarily low, but if he has only brown eyed genes, it's exactly what you'd expect. So common sense says he likely has BB genes. Me having just one kid instead of 10 makes this effect a lot less dramatic, but it's still there. The fact that I didn't have a kid with green eyes makes it a bit more likely that he's got BB genes.

Again, I'm sorry about sounding rude in my last post, it was just the disturbing image is all! Also, it's not an excuse for me being rude, but the reason I didn't give you a full explanation earlier was just a matter of me not having time at the moment. I think I spent almost 1/2 hour just now writing this post and double checking my math. I understand if you're still offended enough that you just never want to respond to me, but that was totally not my intention, and I realize I was pretty careless about how I worded my response. When I said you were confused, I didn't mean your math was off, because actually you made a good point, you showed why Arotos's post had nothing to do with the situation at hand. What I meant to say, and didn't say at all in any good way, was that I was not supporting Arotos's idea, and that the probability was different for another reason. I know I should have said it more clearly, and shouldn't have posted in a rush, and shouldn't have focused just on the strange images I got from your post, and I know I screwed up. Sorry. I can tell you're smart, and I'm flattered that you were willing to put so much time into a problem I only posted as a joke to get Ayoub to stop posting nonsense, and the last thing I'd want is for my mistake to make you leave this thread on bad terms.

Lunarsweets · Post by **Lunarsweets** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:16 pm

Deandra....I think you killed me....I'm nit used to that much math in one sitting...oh, and you are paying for my funeral.

DorostheConqueror · Post by **DorostheConqueror** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:09 pm

Ooo! Ooo! Do a post on Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimensions next!

Here's a bonus question for the computer nerds here, since I don't want to clutter up the forum with new topics. For 100 points, how do you install Windows 95? For bonus points, how do you do this off a disk image? For even more bonus points, make that also using a virtual drive running through outdated and unsupported Microsoft emulation software? And finally, for real bonus points (since the last couple bonus questions are actually necessary to win), is there any way to do this without melting your computer?

Deandra · Post by **Deandra** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:38 pm

DorostheConqueror wrote:Ooo! Ooo! Do a post on Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimensions next!

Did I mention that I didn't actually expect anybody to try solving the damn thing? Except Ayoub of course

I thought the word nelipot would be easy enough to google, but apparently not, so next up is okiphia.

Ayoub · Post by **Ayoub** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:47 pm

Hehe, I went low for a while assuming Tourist or Doros would right a 'makes-the-scroll-bar-very-small' length post describing every possible outcome =)

DorostheConqueror · Post by **DorostheConqueror** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:13 pm

But hippie is a word for people without shoes, too! In fact, I'd argue that "hippie" is the ONLY valid answer for your question, as I'm a big proponent of functional English and the living language. Nelipot isn't a word that's used or understood by, well, pretty much anyone. In what sense, then, does it count as an English word? The word "feasceaft" hasn't been used by an English speaker since our ancestors crawled out of the bogs of Northern Europe, and while it may have at one point been a "real" English word, today it's no more English (and arguably a great deal less English) than words like "porque" or "konichiwa".

In addition, I demand to know the etymology of the word! On what authority do we know it's cromulent? Yes, "from the Greek for 'take my bloody word for it'", but I mean how do we know that it's actuallybeen used before, and not fabricated out of thin air? I could scribble the word "histrobalvacious" into the dictionary, define it as "the quality of being histrobalvanized", and all we'd have is a nonsense word scribbled in a dictionary. I've never seen nelipot in any work of literature (including Joyce and Eco!) and all references to it on Google seem to come back to the Worthless Word of the Day. This website lists "neologization" as rare, despite the fact that it's far more common than the apparently "unrare" word nelipot. Could this be a subtle clue?

Frankly, I'm calling shenanigans on the whole thing. The webmasters were clearly getting bored and decided to do a spot of neologizing to pass the time.

Deandra · Post by **Deandra** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:26 pm

Ok, which is why I'm giving the next turn to okiphia. I can't know in advance which questions are going to be easy for people and which ones are going to be hard. Frankly I'd think some of your "who are these people" type questions are a lot harder than anything I've asked, just cause I wouldn't even know where to begin if I didn't know the people in the first place, and I really suck at remembering names. But that's just my opinion, and if nobody gets a question I ask, I'm happy to give people the answer and just move on.

I'm sure we could all come up with impossibly hard questions, and we can all come up with questions that take 1 second to google. Finding the balance between the two (in other words, coming up with a good question) isn't always that easy when we all have such different backgrounds.

okiphia · Post by **okiphia** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:41 pm

Deandra wrote:Ok, which is why I'm giving the next turn to okiphia. I can't know in advance which questions are going to be easy for people and which ones are going to be hard. Frankly I'd think some of your "who are these people" type questions are a lot harder than anything I've asked, just cause I wouldn't even know where to begin if I didn't know the people in the first place, and I really suck at remembering names. But that's just my opinion, and if nobody gets a question I ask, I'm happy to give people the answer and just move on.

I'm sure we could all come up with impossibly hard questions, and we can all come up with questions that take 1 second to google. Finding the balance between the two (in other words, coming up with a good question) isn't always that easy when we all have such different backgrounds.

wait my turn? Again? gah.. i kin never think of anything.. hmmm.....

okies

What is this image, what song and movie is it from, and when was the movie released?

I have another image for a hint if it's needed
(This movie is not one most people would just kinda forget, and has quite a following)

DorostheConqueror · Post by **DorostheConqueror** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:47 pm

No, no, you misunderstand, I'm not saying "it's hard", hard questions are fine, nor am I saying your question was "bad", on the contrary it was pretty interesting. I'm just saying it's not a real word! I've never encountered it anywhere, and while that might be just on account of me being a dingus, Google doesn't seem to have encountered it, either. Perhaps most damning of all is the fact that not even Mr Webster has heard of it. I'm honestly curious here as to where this word came from and why it's floating around cyberspace, usually either as a mirror or as a little aside on someone's MySpace/ DA account... where did you first hear it?

Like I said, this doesn't add up, and if the culprits behind this word don't make themselves known, I'm declaring verbal Jihad on nelipot. It will be the sworn duty of all good Grammar Nazis to hunt this word down wherever it goes!

okiphia · Post by **okiphia** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:49 pm

Here, Doros

http://www.onelook.com/?loc=rescb&lang=all&w=nelipot

DorostheConqueror · Post by **DorostheConqueror** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:53 pm

okiphia wrote:Here, Doros

http://www.onelook.com/?loc=rescb&lang=all&w=nelipot

Exactly. Links one and two are just trimmed versions of link three (posted above), which is the most substantial source for the word on the net (or at least the most substantial source I can find digging through the first twenty-odd pages of hits).

-edit- Even the oldest version of Webster's dictionary lacks an entry for nelipot, so it's unlikely that the word was once cromulent and has since fallen into complete disues.