4 ms·
Grazing Goat Problems
- coopierez 6y agoSomething that gets my goat - goats don't graze, they browse. Great article though!
- _Microft 6y agoThanks for teaching me something new! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grazing_(behaviour) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grazing_(behaviour) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browsing_(herbivory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browsing_(herbivory)
- elliekelly 5y agoSuddenly the Moroccan argan tree goats make a lot more sense!
- lostlogin 5y agoIf your favourite browser the Moroccan argan tree goat too?
- elliekelly 5y agoIt’s a close second behind Firefox ;)
- _emacsomancer_ 5y agoWith the latter containing the wonderful line 'If the population of browsers grows too high, all of the browse that they can reach may be devoured.'
- marcosdumay 5y agoAlso, who the hell makes a circular barn?
- dmckeon 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_barn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_barn
- tzs 5y agoBased on the definitions I've been able to find, it would seem browsers are animals that mostly eat by browsing, and grazers are animals that mostly eat by grazing, but a browser can graze and a grazer can browse. The goats in these problems are confined to fields of grass and that is all they can eat, so it seems they are in fact grazing goats (and probably unhappy goats since they would much rather be browsing).
- friseurtermin 6y agoOh, for a second I thought this was about Goat Ops [0]. [0]: http://www.goatops.com/ http://www.goatops.com/
- robotbikes 6y agoGoats are the pentesters of the barnyard or as my step-dad says a goat will show you any weakpoints in your fence.
- KingOfCoders 6y agoNitpicking I know, but "we now know exactly how long the rope must be to get an area of 50 square units" does not work with a formula that contains pi and additionally a square root, does it? We know exactly what pi is, it is pi. The circumference of a cirle is exactly 2rpi. In this way we know the exact answer. But knowing it is "pi" - not the number pi 3.1415926535... - we don't know how long to create a rope, for that we would need to know the "complete" number of pi. (Great article though)
- blueblisters 6y agoWe can get "exact" lengths in rational multiples of pi by cutting a rope/string to exactly one circumference of a circle of radius (length/2pi). Similarly you can get square roots by using the hypotenuse of the appropriate right triangle.
- KingOfCoders 6y agoI don't think you can cut a String exactlyu to the circumference of a circle of a certain radius. It will always be longer or shorter.
- ealexhudson 6y agoAre you saying it's possible to cut a rope to length 3?
- monkeywork 5y agoyou could cut it to the point that it's effectively 3 from yours or mine point of view but mathematically its likely 3.0000000000000000000000000001 or something. Precision on any cut in the real world will near impossible to do in absolute.
- wtallis 6y agoI think you need to clarify your definition of "exact" for this to be a productive line of discussion. Are you looking for a closed-form solution, a rational number, something that can be constructed with compass and straight edge, ...?
- supermatt 6y agoAs a keeper of goats, the answer is always “they eat whatever you don’t want them to eat”. Goats and fences don’t exist in the same quantum state unless observed.
- robotbikes 6y agoI imagine the answer would be a little harder to calculate if you had to introduce the statistical probability of the goat eating the rope.
- supermatt 5y agoThat depends on if you want the goat to eat the rope or not. If not, 100%.
- throwbigdata 6y agoProblem is not optimized by assuming spherical goats.
- nickcw 6y agoWhen I was about 14 (and in the advanced math set) my math teacher gave me this problem. Specifically the one with the goat in a square field tethered in the center of one side. I spent ages trying to solve it and managed to convince myself that it didn't have an analytical solution - well at least not one I could come up with. So I invented an iterative process to binary search the solution on my calculator. I came up with an answer in the end to 5 or so significant figures which I was happy with. That was the first math problem that I met that didn't have an analytical solution but I could solve so it was one of those breakthrough moments in my maths learning. My math teacher was happy with the solution. She'd given it to us deliberately as an example of a problem with a solution, but no analytical solution as a kind of trick question in order to make us think. Great teacher!
- ngcc_hk 6y agoIs it involves Taylor series?
- chirau 5y agoGoats do not graze though.
- paulpauper 5y agoI wish i could think of interesting solutions to problems like this and others.
- h2odragon 5y agoMore "real world" complications: how far does the rope stretch, and how far does the goat stretch? I ran a goat for years on a 300ft runner cable, with a 20ft chain sliding freely on that. She worked out how to tie some incredible knots. I had to cut down two trees on the run because she figured out how to use them as fulcrums to lever the carriage link open.
- beingu 5y agoThe article spends a long time building up the problem, but doesn't give the closed-form solution, which I find frustrating. It's here on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_problem#Closed-form_solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_problem#Closed-form_solut...