Recipes

2011-05-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

Actual Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (from allrecipes.com):

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups all-purpose flour

How a cook reads the recipe:

1 stick of butter
A couple large dollops of shortening
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (or to taste)
1/2 cup white sugar (or to taste)
1 egg
a splash of vanilla extract
a dash of baking soda
a pinch of salt (or to taste)
half a bag of semisweet chocolate chips (or to taste)
2 cups all-purpose flour (not to taste, this one's important)

How an engineer reads the recipe:

1/2 cup butter (+/- 10%)
1/2 cup shortening (+/- 10%)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (+/- 10%)
1/2 cup white sugar (+/- 10%)
1 egg (+/- 10%....wait...)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (+/- 10%)
1 teaspoon baking soda (+/- 10%)
1/4 teaspoon salt (+/- 10%)
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (+/- 10%)
2 cups all-purpose flour (+/- 10%)

How a physicist reads the recipe:

0.50000000 cups of butter
0.50000000 cups shortening
0.75000000 cups packed brown sugar
0.50000000 cups white sugar
1.00000000 eggs
1.00000000 teaspoons vanilla extract
1.00000000 teaspoons baking soda
0.25000000 teaspoons salt
1.50000000 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2.00000000 cups all-purpose flour

(AND IF THESE MEASUREMENTS AREN'T EXACT IT WILL BLOW THE COOKIES UP.)
(....why in the world aren't these in metric units?!)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I might be exaggerating this a little bit but having been the engineer in a cooking endeavor with someone that knew how to cook and a physicist, I'd say this isn't too far off from the truth.

The Probability of Finding a Girlfriend in the Engineering Building

2011-05-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Of all the people that walk into the engineering building, the probability that they are a girl is 1/8 (rough estimate).

Of those girls, the probability that they are single is 1/6 (here, single is defined to be not married...if some guy is stupid enough to bring his girlfriend with him into the engineering building, she's fair game).

Of that group, the probability that they are looking for a relationship is 1/8 (rough estimate based on the fact that she's spending time in the place where she's LEAST likely to find a guy she likes).

Of that group, the probability that an engineer could be interested in her is 2/3 (we're usually not very picky).

Of that group, the probability that she could be interested in an engineer or eventually be convinced to be interested in an engineer is 1/50 (because out of 50 nerds, there's at least one of them that isn't too weird).

The probability that an engineer will talk to a girl is 1/20.

The probability that the conversation will last more than 2 minutes is 1/30.

The probability that the engineer will ask the girl out, or that he will EVENTUALLY ask the same girl out is 1/50 (engineers are usually pretty shy, and the ones who aren't are generally the really weird ones).

The probability that the girl will go on a first date with him: 4/5 (girls are usually pretty nice about that, and we appreciate it).

The probability that the first date will go well: 1/3 (this isn't too hard to do, but we're talking about engineers here. they're bound to say/do something incredibly awkward or nerdy at least once in the course of an hour).

The probability that the engineer will ask the girl out on a second date: 1/25 (if we did it the first time, we can usually convince ourselves to do it a second time).

The probability that the girl will go on a second date with him: 7/10.

The probability that the second date will go well: 1/3, assuming that there's still a topic of conversation that isn't physics, math, or why Star Wars is an awesome movie.

The probability that the engineer will ask the girl on a third date: 1/5.

The probability that the girl will go on a third date with him: 2/5.

The probability that the third date will lead to a "DTR": 2/5.

The probability that the DTR will lead to a relationship: 2/5.

To find the overall probability of an engineer finding a girlfriend in the engineering building, multiply all of the above probabilities together:

9218107/100000000000000000000 (that's 1 followed by 20 zeros, folks).

Rounding up for simplicity's sake, this is more or less equivalent to:

1/100000000000000 (that's 1 followed by 14 zeros).

Or, in other words, 1 in 100 trillion.

The odds of winning the lottery: 1 in 135145920.

Conclusion: Since engineers have a better chance of winning the lottery than finding a girlfriend in the engineering building, the money they set aside for dates would be better used on a lotto ticket. Or they should find somewhere else to do their homework.

Life of an Engineer

Recipes

The Probability of Finding a Girlfriend in the Engineering Building