Matt has been making a video on Dream's luck, which he mentioned last episode in problem 015-3. In this video, a running gag is there are a few shots where he's unnaturally lucky, which took a long time to film. The video performed quite well after the Minecraft community got a hold of it. He also mentions that his high-effort Christmas tree video from episode 014 (news) did not perform as well as he'd hoped while his low-effort "running guest code" video performed surprisingly better.
After her appearance on 8 Out of 10 Cats does Comedy Countdown, people started following her and saying lovely things. Bec finds it nice to see that TV still works.
Both of my parents are teachers, and they're teaching from home via Zoom in the current lockdown. One of them has asked every member of the class to bake some biscuits for their maths lesson — measuring, units, etc. My question is: What's the best way for them to share the biscuits with one another?
Originally, this problem was planned for 015, but it had to be pushed back because Matt was too deep in the maths. [Editor's note: biscuits and cookies were previously mentioned in 014-1]
A first approach: Everyone gives them to Bec, and assuming Bec doesn't eat them all, she distributes them to everyone again. For n people, this takes 2n - 3 journeys. After some diversions on cookie parties, Matt has found out that this is not the optimal solution. With the help of some shitty Python code and the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS), Matt has found someone else's solution for exactly this problem from 1972, though back then it was called the telephone problem.
Bec recommends a solution where cookies are passed in a big circle, which is apparently the second best solution and takes the same number of journeys as Matt's initial solution. With a bit of extra faff, you can get rid of exactly one more journey, which is the theoretical maximum.
Bec dinged it, Matt will pass on the ding to Raphi, who can then pass it on to their parents.
Tim wants to be efficient with their annual leave and wants to make the most of the time they have off. "Can you please help suggest some interesting ways to elongate the days I have off work in 2021?" They're happy for creative solutions. They were originally thinking of taking the day off when the clocks go back to get a 25 hour day, but that's always on the weekend.
Matt talks about an experiment where people falling were experiencing time differently due to panic. He suggests spending your holiday perpetually falling. Bec suggests skydiving over the international date line. Matt suggests hiring someone to scare Tim occasionally during his holiday. Bec suggests taking her along. Matt shares anecdotes from travelling with Bec, including one about breaking a phone. Bec suggests Tim comes with them to the Edinburgh Fringe and do all their driving and props.
Bec doesn't think she deserves a ding. Awaiting feedback from Tim. Matt will add a dropdown to the Problem Posing Page from episode 015 (news) where you can select "solution".
A different mathematician, Kit Yates, has calculated the coronavirus volume again, and it's being picked up by newspapers again. They've got a much larger value of 160 ml, about half a soda can. Matt was invited to the same BBC episode that Kit was also on, and they both talked about their calculations. Matt explains the differences between their approaches.
Since a virus is effectively just data, Matt wanted to know how much data the can would contain. A single virus RNA contains roughly 7.5 kB of data. The half soda can of virus is equivalent to roughly 600 million 1 TB hard drives. Given that only roughly 2% of the virus RNA is actively used, it would only make for 12.5 million 1 TB hard drives.
Bec notes that a small bottle of Corona beer is 210 ml. You could have an actual bottle of corona(virus).
Dom, on Instagram, sent a message mentioning Courtney Dauwalter, known for her knee-length shorts, and Sabrina Verjee, who also wore knee-length running tights. Once you go over 100 km and off-road, the length also seems to increase with distance.
Matt asked a friend Kenny [Editor's note: Spelling likely incorrect], who used to run ultramarathons. He liked to use longer shorts to avoid sun burns, but guessed that shorter shorts might help with sweating and cooling, though he has not noticed a difference.
Bec contacted her sister-in-law, who has won Paralympics medals for sprinting. She said she never thought about it in terms of length, but she liked wearing the little shorts and top because she looks great in them. It's a psychological factor where you want other people to see how good you are, which also might give you an edge.