From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sun May 05 2002 - 23:32:37 MDT
> YP Fun wrote:
>
>>GUNS != SAFETY/PROTECTION
>>
> The factorial of guns equals safety divided by protection?
outlawpoet - wrote:
I think he's attempting to say
GUNS 'do not equal' SAFETY 'or' PROTECTION
No, he had it right to start with. The YP equation
predicts that everyone should have exactly two guns.
Note that zero factorial is defined as 1, and
1 factorial is also 1. (I was never quite clear
why, but I didnt make up the rules.) If one
has no guns, then GUNS=0, GUNS! = 1 and so
SAFETY = PROTECTION. Each gun has one safety
(that little switch that prevents proles from
accidentally firing upon each other) so
obviously if you have no gun, you have no
safety and to make the above equation work
out, PROTECTION = 0. (That 0/0 equals 1 is one
of those calculus limit thingies.)
Nowthen, if you have one gun, then again
GUNS! = 1 and again SAFETY = PROTECTION, but this
time you have one safety, so PROTECTION=1.
Likewise if you have two guns, then GUNS! = 2
and SAFETY = 2, and again PROTECTION = 1.
But if you have 3 guns, then GUNS! = 6
and SAFETY = 3 so PROTECTION must be 0.5
and so on. Going from 1 to 2 guns has
doubled your safety without loss to
protection, whereas going to 3 guns has
given you 50% more safety but has caused
you to lose half your protection.
As you get more guns, your SAFETY goes up
linearly but your PROTECTION goes down as
the inverse factorial. Clearly, the lesson
here is that by the YP Fun equation, to
maximize safety AND protection, everyone
should have exactly two guns.
I fully agree with YP in that
GUNS != SAFETY/PROTECTION.
But I suspect YP did not originate that
equation, for I have owned two guns since
my childhood. Furthermore, one can view
any number of old westerns, which depict
generally 19th century America. Nearly
everyone there had exactly two guns.
spike
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