way way off topic
Gary Kline
kline at thought.org
Tue Oct 23 23:16:34 UTC 2012
On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 08:52:49AM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:31:18 +0700, Olivier Nicole wrote:
> > Gary,
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Gary Kline <kline at thought.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > apologies up front for this math type quandary. I had it in a std C program,
> > > but 3+ hours of grepping havent found it. I would have bet my last cent that I
> > > had a summary Somewhere, but cant find that either.
> > >
> > > here is the problem as best I can remember it.
> > >
> > >
> > > let's say that john is 8 and his older friend, jim, is 22.
> > > how much older is exact percentage terms is jim?
> >
> > That should be 22/8=2.75
> > Jim is 275% older than John
>
> Jim is 175% _older_. Why? Because 100% older means 16 years,
> as 100% refers to 8 years (8+8=16, 200% older is 8+8+8=24).
> Percentage is always a reference to something else, in this
> question, Jim's age in relation to John's. The word "older"
> means "adding percentage", refering to the base value of 8,
> "divided in 100 parts" (floating point considerations aside),
> to finally reach the value 22.
>
> If the question would be different, say, "What's the percentage
> of John's age regarding Jim's age?" In that case, it would be
> 8/22=0.3636 being 36%. Obvious: John's age is approximately
> 1/3 of Jim's age.
>
> The easiest way for creating the proper calculation is to refer
> to the equation
>
> percentage * 100
> percentage value = ----------------
> base value
>
> and resolve it to whatever is required.
>
I just took a cup's worth of coffee/caffeine to bring me back up! but
it seems to me that your logic is about the same as I remember
otherwise stated in getting the true differences in ages or speeds
[say or cars. x == 200clicks/hr, y == 400 clicks/hour.] or
*whatever*. it isn't as easy as it would seem at first thought.
> --
> Polytropon
> Magdeburg, Germany
> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
--
Gary Kline kline at thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix
Twenty-six years of service to the Unix community.
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