math question

TheVindelator

Here’s a math problem I can’t solve. It's a word problem.

“Sally the Dark Elf has 5 tempers. She also 5 ice staves sitting around from leveling woodworking. Now she wants a green staff or two. How many tempers should she combine with each staff maximize her results?”

I know 5 is a bad answer. But is 1 the best answer?

Is a 20% chance of success 5 times better than 40% twice and 20% once?

Raice

The odds of doing something 5 times with a 20% chance of success each time is still only a 20% chance of success once. In other words, it doesn't matter how many times you do it. It's still only 20%. And it's the same for any percentile chance.

I've failed on an 80% before - so there is never a guarantee. My advice is to do one at 80% chance, and do one at 20%.

The odds are if you do 5 at 20%.... you'll have 5 failures. But of you do 1 at 80% and 1 at 20% - the odds are that you might have 1.

OR - you could do 1 at 100%, and definitely have 1.

dannomite82

The expected value is the same regardless. On average you will only get 1 success. However, there's a small chance you will get 0 successes on all of them if you go with fewer than 5. So it all comes down to either eliminating luck, or hoping your luck is good.

EDIT:
Expected value = odds of success X reward (1 item) + odds of failure X reward for failure (0 items) for each item you gamble.

so .20 * 1 + .20 *1 ... (5 times) = .20 X 5 = 1 green item + 0 white items
or 1 * 1 = 1 green item and then you have 4 white items still intact.

Gedalya

I have a math question if anyone has a moment:

Determine the regions of the pq-plane for which the function f(x,y) = 2px + qy^2 restricted to the curve x^3 + y^3 = 1 has exactly one and exactly three critical points, respectively.

Also, I am a Nigerian prince.

dannomite82

Sorry you're on your own for that one your majesty. Didn't go that far into Algebra and Geometry.

SirAndy

42 ...

TheVindelator

Gedalya wrote: »

I have a math question if anyone has a moment:

Determine the regions of the pq-plane for which the function f(x,y) = 2px + qy^2 restricted to the curve x^3 + y^3 = 1 has exactly one and exactly three critical points, respectively.

Also, I am a Nigerian prince.

Depends on which daedic pq-plane you're talking about. In the shivering isles, the answer is cabbage.

lePoissonRouge

Ah gawd I just finished doing my math homework! I don't want to go back to it!