Rafael Prieto Curiel, in the mathematics magazine Chalkdust, does some rough calculations about waiting for a bus: “Let’s measure how much time I expect to wait for the next bus to arrive as I observe more or fewer passengers in the stop…. If I find zero passengers at the bus stop, 99% of the time I […]
Tag: time
A Time/Cost Assessment of Toilet-Paper Folding, Worldwide
Three Swedish researchers spent time estimating the aggregate time spent folding the corners of toilet paper. They published this study (which tells only their estimate of how much time those other people spent folding, but does not disclose how much time the authors spent calculating and writing): “It is worth 10 million working hours a year […]
Tamagotchi, time-wasting, Pokémon Go, and the economy
Tamagotchi, whose inventors were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for economics in 1997, is celebrated by Jaime Rubio Hancock, writing in El Pais: Does not anyone remember the Tamagotchi? 6 sets which we found as harmful as Pokémon Go …This Japanese toy Bandai hooked millions of children in 1996. It was not more than a small […]
The operatic good timing of the leap-second decision
The decision to create a leap second at the end of 2016 is timely, in oh so many ways. It especially delights us, because this year’s Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will include the premier of a new mini-opera, called “The Last Second” — about a plot to secretly add an extra leap second to the world’s clocks. A […]