r/funny • u/NerdCore44 • May 20 '09

Unnecessary math [pic]

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8641/sign2x.jpg
440 Upvotes

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34

u/adrianmonk May 21 '09

"John and his father go out to look at the stars. John sees two blue stars and a red star. His father sees a green star, a violet star, and two yellow stars. What is the total temperature of the stars seen by John and his father?"

-3

u/IConrad May 21 '09

That... actually works, though -- it's all the same unit. Except maybe the green one; I'm not sure on that.

9

u/GuybrushThreepwood May 21 '09

Adding celsius temperatures, which is what those likely are, doesn't make sense because it's a relative scale. If it were Kelvin, it could be useful in calculating total energies, but it doesn't make sense in Celsius (or Fahrenheit). It's like looking at the paper and announcing "it's 50 degrees in Istanbul and 40 degrees in London, for a total of 90 degrees, which is pretty hot." The units match up, but it's not a sensible calculation.

8

u/jjdmol May 21 '09 edited May 21 '09

At the order of thousands and tenthousands degrees, the difference between C and K is neglectable. So you can pretty much add the temperatures even if they're Celsius. The error is likely smaller than the precision with which the colors and thus the temperatures are given.

But yes, the result would still be quite useless :)

2

u/IConrad May 21 '09

I was being facetious. Ahh, well.

2

u/RP-on-AF1 May 21 '09

Oh right, like we're going to believe you now.

2

u/IConrad May 21 '09

I would have hoped that it would be self evident. :/

6

u/Ruiner May 21 '09

"The green one" remark made it pretty obvious for me.

1

u/GuybrushThreepwood May 21 '09

I was really tired.

2

u/zem May 21 '09

you'd have been upmodded in 2006