Jim Blair wrote:
wrote in message

oups.com...

The linear thinking is inadequate in describing life, for a simple
reason: Life is non-linear.


Hi,

??? Life is linear.

Bzzt. Try again.

We all age exactly one day each 24 hours.

Nope.

I myself age slightly less than a day in one of your 24 hour periods
since I live in Colorado and a higher altitude than you do in wis.

A plot of
your age vs time is as linear as it gets with no scatter in the data:
correlation coefficient = 1.000.

It is a trivial exercise to show that we do not all age in a linear
fashion with respect to one another.
Hell... one can even prove that one does not age uniformly with oneself.

I am willing to bet that there will be a flurry of "you are wrong" posts
from the ignorant. I am also willing to bet that someone will take time
to argue why my argument is correct.

Since from your page you seem to like things about statistics etc. you
might appreciate the following, offered to reduce the sting of the above
comments.

In a conversation between Gen. Leslie Groves and Enrico Fermi, the
subject of how one defines a "great general" came up.

Fermi: 'So Leslie, how many generals are know as "great"?'

Groves: 'Well Enrico... about 3 out of every 100 generals will perform
well enough to be considered "great".'

Fermi: 'So how does a general become "great" in the eyes of his peers?'

Groves: Well, usually a general is considered "great" if he wins 5
consecutive major battles.'

Fermi: 'Well... let's see... Considering that most modern armies are
equally matched on the battle field, this means that each has a 50%
chance of winning the battle. So if a general were to win 1 battle at
50%, then 2 battles in a row would be 25% chance, 3 is about 12%, 4 is
about 6%... so the chances of winning 5 in a row is about 3%. Yup...
about 3 in a hundred.
However general, that is not "greatness"... that is simply statistics.