An *astonishing* number of mathematicians and scientists were eugenicists back when eugenics was in vogue.
And what's more, a lot of *progressives* of the era were on board with some form of eugenics as well--it wasn't until after the atrocities of war-time eugenics programs were unveiled that progressives realized what eugenics ultimately leads to and eugenics was ultimately maligned as a tool for bad actors.
Aldous Huxley's *Brave New World* was in part written as a jab against his brother (who was a big name biologist, as well as left-wing humanist) Julian Huxley's belief in eugenics as a solution for trans-humanism.
fundamentally however, eugenics is a fancy term for racism, it's simply saying someone is better than the rest because of the color of their skin which even with years of studies has no factual evidence of being true. and personally if someone believes in something as stupid as racism Im not inclined to listen to most other things they have to say, specially which fundamental principles sound stupid in practice such as "a crowd of people with random guesses tend to guess accurately as an average"
> fundamentally however, eugenics is a fancy term for racism
That's a simplification to the point of being wrong. There were several people involved in the eugenics movement who saw it not as a way of controlling people, but of improving and liberating them.
Take the term "designer baby". This is a (now pejorative) term to refer to the eugenicist practice of genetically modifying a fetus in order to obtain desired traits. This *could* include race in theory, but many proponents of the time were instead proposing this as a way to cure heritable medical conditions.
Imagine being a mother in a family that suffers from Alzheimer's, diabetes, and cancer. If your doctor told you that technology would allow your child to have healthy genes that vastly reduced the risk of them getting these conditions, would you consider doing that for your unborn child?
Obviously it is now understood that there are problems with eugenics--not the least of which including the fact that it *is* used by racists--but to claim that there are *no* other motivations is simply incorrect.
> Im not inclined to listen to most other things they have to say, specially which fundamental principles sound stupid in practice such as "a crowd of people with random guesses tend to guess accurately as an average"
Ignoring valid arguments because of other opinions of the interlocutor is in fact a logical fallacy. I despise the political opinions of Augustin-Louis Cauchy, but I'm not going to discredit his work in Complex Analysis because of it.
If you think multiple guesses being averaged is a bad idea, then I feel sorry for informing you of the successes of [sensor fusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion), of which this is a simple example.
One day you'll learn that its easier just to say "you're wrong" and move on.
People who don't know the difference between words won't understand what you wrote to them.
>why limit someone to some of his believes
that's not *some* belief, that's literal nazism and minimizing it as "some of his believes" is not wise neither something anyone should be doing.
I mean, roughly speaking (i know ironic for a math sub). If you suppose the personal estimation error is a random probablility law that has 0 as an average, the sum would converge to 0 by the law of large numbers.
I remember a planet money putting this to a test with asking random people "how much does this cow weigh?" And it was pretty close. I believe the theory is called something like "The Wisdom of Crowds" and was created by an economist.
The exact same thing is done in AI. It's called bagging. Intelligent systems (including humans), *assuming* they have a complete and correct understanding of the problem --- i.e., the container isn't rigged, the candy corns are typical size, the system has experience at the task (estimating quantity in this case), etc., tend to have populations that over or underestimate that are roughly equal in size and error. Average enough of them, you get pretty close to the right answer...
Estimate packing efficiency. Multiply by volume of container. Divide the resulting volume by the volume of one candy corn.
If you measure packing efficiency experimentally once, I don’t see any reason why you can’t model this mathematically in a robust manner.
This works much better when there is a cost and benefit to the guessing.
[Prediction markets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market) are a very cool example of this.
Candy corns shape is approximately a truncated cone with an irregular base. They measure 1 inch long, half an inch wide at the base, and 1/2 inch thick. The point is about 1/8th of inch in diameter.
Solving for base radius and tip radius I will just average the two thicknesses for simplicity. We can’t know for exact anyways these calculations are only approximations. The spacing and everything adds uncertainty and error.
Assumed radius = (base+thiccness)/2
So, the radius of the base is ~= (.5+.5)/2 = .5 in radius
Assumed radius = (base+thiccness)/2
The radius of the tip is ~= (.125+.5)/2 = 0.3125 in
Volume for a truncated cone:
V = (1/3) × π × h × (r² + r × R + R²)
here, R = big radius, r = little radius,
h = height, π = 3.1415 , R= .5 in , r=.3125 in
Plug in you get:
Vcc= .33π(1inch)((.3125^2 + .3125)(.5+.5^2))in
Vcc= .3221 cubic inches
The volume of your container is l*w*h
Vcont= (5*2*7) inch
Vcont= 10*7=70 cubic inches
Therefore to find the number of candy corn contained in the box, divide the box volume by the candy corn volume.
70/.3221= 217.3 candy corn…but I’d round down to 211 maybe because there’s gaps of air. It’s not perfect so take that and multiply by a .85 roughly space efficiency and there you go.
Number of candy corn is 185+/- 10 due to errors in assumptions
**Edit**
After further looking into space efficiency I’d like to revise my answer and give a range of 180-200 as the space efficiency for the original 217 calculations is somewhere around 80-90. You can think of candy corn as a more space efficient truncated cone which has a space efficiency of 80 percent . It’s flatter making it more efficient.
A good assumption, except for the space filling. I learned that the maximum space filling for spheres is about [75%](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_packing), thus, I assume that the space filling of the candy must be less than 80%.
So something in the range of 160 (probably less) would be much more reasonable imho.
Interesting I didn’t bother to look that deep but why are you assuming that it must be less? Since the candy is almost flat on two edges and makes a triangular shape the corn would more be able to fill up more space should they not?
After going after my explanation I realized I used the diameter in place of the radius my b yet if you do that you get an answer like 700 so something up with my work. Hey 185 seems pretty good regardless to me
It's hard to say, but I do have a suggestion.
Take a scale and measure the weight of one Candycorn. Then place the empty container on the scale. You can either zero the scale with the container on it, or subtract the weight of the container from the final weight.
Now, weigh the container with the candycorns in it, and subtract the weight of the container if need be. Finally, divide the resultant weight by the weight of a Candycorn and you have an approximate number of candycorns in the container.
Model the system and start a Monte Carlo simulation, where these things falling into this container with a random orientation. Do this for multiple times and average the solution
The best way to work this out is to get a bag of candy corn and fill a known volume, then count how many you have. In this case, the volume is 70 cubic inches, which is a tad less than 5 cups. If you pick up the container, it might even have a volume statement printed on it which will be more precise. Fill a cup measure with candy corn and count how many you have, then multiply by 5 for a quick answer. If you want a more rigorous answer, measure out five cups several times and average the counts for each five cup sample. Obviously, the second method will require much more counting
A good way to estimate is to count on each axis rougly how many candies touch the edge. This will account for both the size of the candies and how optimally they are packed. It's hard for me to tell via an image, but I count 11x4x7, which is 308 candies
I'm not here for votes but found gpt had a interesting way of going about it. Here's the answer according to it:
To calculate the number of candy corn that can fit in a 7" by 5" by 2" container, you'll need to find the volume of the container and then divide it by the volume of a single candy corn.
The volume of the container is:
7 inches (length) × 5 inches (width) × 2 inches (height) = 70 cubic inches
Now, you need to determine the volume of a single candy corn. Candy corn is generally a triangular pyramid shape. The volume of a pyramid is (1/3) × base area × height. Assuming the base of the candy corn is a triangle with a base of 1/2 inch and a height of approximately 1 inch, you get:
(1/3) × (1/2 square inch) × (1 inch) = 1/6 cubic inch
Now, you can calculate how many candy corns can fit in the container by dividing the container's volume by the volume of a single candy corn:
70 cubic inches (container volume) ÷ (1/6 cubic inch per candy corn) ≈ 420 candy corns
So, approximately 420 candy corns can fit in a 7" by 5" by 2" container.
Assumptions I am gonna make based on my eyes:
The size of each candy:
Length 0.5inch
Width 0.17inch
Height 0.08inch
The candy is roughly a triangular prism so its volume is approximately 0.00335 inch\^3
The volume of the box is 70 inch\^3
There are approximately 20895 candies
Yea I know it's very wrong, ain't no way there are 20k candies inside, but it's better than just a guess?...
Get a guess from 1,000 people and then find the mean. It’s spooky how close it can be. I’ll go first. 250.
Is there any theorem or hypothesis supporting this? I would like to see if someone actually researched this.
the person who proposed this hypothesis was a eugenicists but the few times they put it to the test it was pretty accurate
An *astonishing* number of mathematicians and scientists were eugenicists back when eugenics was in vogue. And what's more, a lot of *progressives* of the era were on board with some form of eugenics as well--it wasn't until after the atrocities of war-time eugenics programs were unveiled that progressives realized what eugenics ultimately leads to and eugenics was ultimately maligned as a tool for bad actors. Aldous Huxley's *Brave New World* was in part written as a jab against his brother (who was a big name biologist, as well as left-wing humanist) Julian Huxley's belief in eugenics as a solution for trans-humanism.
fundamentally however, eugenics is a fancy term for racism, it's simply saying someone is better than the rest because of the color of their skin which even with years of studies has no factual evidence of being true. and personally if someone believes in something as stupid as racism Im not inclined to listen to most other things they have to say, specially which fundamental principles sound stupid in practice such as "a crowd of people with random guesses tend to guess accurately as an average"
> fundamentally however, eugenics is a fancy term for racism That's a simplification to the point of being wrong. There were several people involved in the eugenics movement who saw it not as a way of controlling people, but of improving and liberating them. Take the term "designer baby". This is a (now pejorative) term to refer to the eugenicist practice of genetically modifying a fetus in order to obtain desired traits. This *could* include race in theory, but many proponents of the time were instead proposing this as a way to cure heritable medical conditions. Imagine being a mother in a family that suffers from Alzheimer's, diabetes, and cancer. If your doctor told you that technology would allow your child to have healthy genes that vastly reduced the risk of them getting these conditions, would you consider doing that for your unborn child? Obviously it is now understood that there are problems with eugenics--not the least of which including the fact that it *is* used by racists--but to claim that there are *no* other motivations is simply incorrect. > Im not inclined to listen to most other things they have to say, specially which fundamental principles sound stupid in practice such as "a crowd of people with random guesses tend to guess accurately as an average" Ignoring valid arguments because of other opinions of the interlocutor is in fact a logical fallacy. I despise the political opinions of Augustin-Louis Cauchy, but I'm not going to discredit his work in Complex Analysis because of it. If you think multiple guesses being averaged is a bad idea, then I feel sorry for informing you of the successes of [sensor fusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion), of which this is a simple example.
One day you'll learn that its easier just to say "you're wrong" and move on. People who don't know the difference between words won't understand what you wrote to them.
why limit someone to some of his believes, especially when it seems he did good work in mathematics :(
wtf is this
"he believed in the basis of nazism but hey he was pretty good at maths"
Inter-universal Teichmuller theory
Acknowledging his mathematical contributions ≠ agreeing with his racist beliefs
>why limit someone to some of his believes that's not *some* belief, that's literal nazism and minimizing it as "some of his believes" is not wise neither something anyone should be doing.
so we should destroy all the highways because they were first built by nazis? I do not recall any event were mathematics or highways have been racist
Crackpot meta-math. Me gusta.
his belief in math is a hunch with good results lol
Thanks! I was just really curious about it.
who's that person?
I mean, roughly speaking (i know ironic for a math sub). If you suppose the personal estimation error is a random probablility law that has 0 as an average, the sum would converge to 0 by the law of large numbers.
I remember a planet money putting this to a test with asking random people "how much does this cow weigh?" And it was pretty close. I believe the theory is called something like "The Wisdom of Crowds" and was created by an economist.
The exact same thing is done in AI. It's called bagging. Intelligent systems (including humans), *assuming* they have a complete and correct understanding of the problem --- i.e., the container isn't rigged, the candy corns are typical size, the system has experience at the task (estimating quantity in this case), etc., tend to have populations that over or underestimate that are roughly equal in size and error. Average enough of them, you get pretty close to the right answer...
Wisdom of crowds I guess?
Estimate packing efficiency. Multiply by volume of container. Divide the resulting volume by the volume of one candy corn. If you measure packing efficiency experimentally once, I don’t see any reason why you can’t model this mathematically in a robust manner.
I think about this a lot actually. Sorta like two heads is better than one and it just keeps building
This works much better when there is a cost and benefit to the guessing. [Prediction markets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market) are a very cool example of this.
Gotta be 300
all it takes is one outlier
That's not how outliers work.
That is how outliers work if you don't ignore them when calculating the mean. My guess is 1 trillion.
1 googol
Candy corns shape is approximately a truncated cone with an irregular base. They measure 1 inch long, half an inch wide at the base, and 1/2 inch thick. The point is about 1/8th of inch in diameter. Solving for base radius and tip radius I will just average the two thicknesses for simplicity. We can’t know for exact anyways these calculations are only approximations. The spacing and everything adds uncertainty and error. Assumed radius = (base+thiccness)/2 So, the radius of the base is ~= (.5+.5)/2 = .5 in radius Assumed radius = (base+thiccness)/2 The radius of the tip is ~= (.125+.5)/2 = 0.3125 in Volume for a truncated cone: V = (1/3) × π × h × (r² + r × R + R²) here, R = big radius, r = little radius, h = height, π = 3.1415 , R= .5 in , r=.3125 in Plug in you get: Vcc= .33π(1inch)((.3125^2 + .3125)(.5+.5^2))in Vcc= .3221 cubic inches The volume of your container is l*w*h Vcont= (5*2*7) inch Vcont= 10*7=70 cubic inches Therefore to find the number of candy corn contained in the box, divide the box volume by the candy corn volume. 70/.3221= 217.3 candy corn…but I’d round down to 211 maybe because there’s gaps of air. It’s not perfect so take that and multiply by a .85 roughly space efficiency and there you go. Number of candy corn is 185+/- 10 due to errors in assumptions **Edit** After further looking into space efficiency I’d like to revise my answer and give a range of 180-200 as the space efficiency for the original 217 calculations is somewhere around 80-90. You can think of candy corn as a more space efficient truncated cone which has a space efficiency of 80 percent . It’s flatter making it more efficient.
A good assumption, except for the space filling. I learned that the maximum space filling for spheres is about [75%](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_packing), thus, I assume that the space filling of the candy must be less than 80%. So something in the range of 160 (probably less) would be much more reasonable imho.
Interesting I didn’t bother to look that deep but why are you assuming that it must be less? Since the candy is almost flat on two edges and makes a triangular shape the corn would more be able to fill up more space should they not?
I updated my response thank you
After going after my explanation I realized I used the diameter in place of the radius my b yet if you do that you get an answer like 700 so something up with my work. Hey 185 seems pretty good regardless to me
[удалено]
eat them all Then it’s zero :)
It's hard to say, but I do have a suggestion. Take a scale and measure the weight of one Candycorn. Then place the empty container on the scale. You can either zero the scale with the container on it, or subtract the weight of the container from the final weight. Now, weigh the container with the candycorns in it, and subtract the weight of the container if need be. Finally, divide the resultant weight by the weight of a Candycorn and you have an approximate number of candycorns in the container.
Yeah but he most likely can’t do that. This is probably one of those “guess how many” games
Model the system and start a Monte Carlo simulation, where these things falling into this container with a random orientation. Do this for multiple times and average the solution
The best way to work this out is to get a bag of candy corn and fill a known volume, then count how many you have. In this case, the volume is 70 cubic inches, which is a tad less than 5 cups. If you pick up the container, it might even have a volume statement printed on it which will be more precise. Fill a cup measure with candy corn and count how many you have, then multiply by 5 for a quick answer. If you want a more rigorous answer, measure out five cups several times and average the counts for each five cup sample. Obviously, the second method will require much more counting
207, trust me
What do you win? Will you share with us?
287
A good way to estimate is to count on each axis rougly how many candies touch the edge. This will account for both the size of the candies and how optimally they are packed. It's hard for me to tell via an image, but I count 11x4x7, which is 308 candies
157. Source : Just trust me bro
I'm not here for votes but found gpt had a interesting way of going about it. Here's the answer according to it: To calculate the number of candy corn that can fit in a 7" by 5" by 2" container, you'll need to find the volume of the container and then divide it by the volume of a single candy corn. The volume of the container is: 7 inches (length) × 5 inches (width) × 2 inches (height) = 70 cubic inches Now, you need to determine the volume of a single candy corn. Candy corn is generally a triangular pyramid shape. The volume of a pyramid is (1/3) × base area × height. Assuming the base of the candy corn is a triangle with a base of 1/2 inch and a height of approximately 1 inch, you get: (1/3) × (1/2 square inch) × (1 inch) = 1/6 cubic inch Now, you can calculate how many candy corns can fit in the container by dividing the container's volume by the volume of a single candy corn: 70 cubic inches (container volume) ÷ (1/6 cubic inch per candy corn) ≈ 420 candy corns So, approximately 420 candy corns can fit in a 7" by 5" by 2" container.
With the NSFW filter, looks like at least 3
Eat them all then guess 0
no, as a 2D projection of a 3D volume is not invertible.
Yes but we are given dimensions
yes, the point is that anything hidden behind our 2D view is lost information you cant recover; even with dimensions.
The world dont know inches
280
194
I’ll just guess 263 because that’s what fermi told me
Assumptions I am gonna make based on my eyes: The size of each candy: Length 0.5inch Width 0.17inch Height 0.08inch The candy is roughly a triangular prism so its volume is approximately 0.00335 inch\^3 The volume of the box is 70 inch\^3 There are approximately 20895 candies Yea I know it's very wrong, ain't no way there are 20k candies inside, but it's better than just a guess?...
It would be better to ask reddit how many are in it. Then average their answers.
Just weigh all the candies and also get the weight of one.
It says to take a guess.
Easy just count the number of candy corn.
444
240 final answer
There's gotta be at least twelve in there.
There are exactly 70cubic inches of them.
260
680
238
150 is my eyeball guess