Math Skills Come in Handy

May 9, 2007

Comments

Another nail in the coffin of the idea that all math beyond arithmetic is useless unless you’re an engineer: free pizza for those who can do geometry in their heads.

That, sadly, leaves me out. There was a time when I could multiply double digit numbers not ending in zero by 3.14 in my head and the like but they are long gone.

via Chaz Hill

3 responses to “Math Skills Come in Handy”

Maniakes

May 9, 2007 at 5:59 pm

“Three and a bit” is an excellent approximation of pi for mental approximations. 3.0 is wrong by less than 5%, and you can fudge that by rounding up somewhere else in your calculation.
Rodney Dill

May 9, 2007 at 10:43 pm

I had something figured out for Domino’s years ago, where they stated that 2 smalls were more than 1 large. (I think the small was a 10 inch and the large was a 14 inch). Technically they were right, but if you assume 1 inch crust (without topping) around the edge of the pizza you got more surface area of toppings with the large, than with the two small. Of course what you really need to know is the weight or volume of the pizza material to do a good comparison as pizzas aren’t really just 2 dimensional. That about cover it?

I thought so.
😉
Bithead

May 10, 2007 at 8:45 am

There was a time when I could multiply double digit numbers not ending in zero by 3.14 in my head and the like but they are long gone.

The effects of too much pizza, over the years?