Math for Survival: Crossing the River With Thugs
I don't think there's a such thing as a neighborhood I shouldn't travel through. Statistically, however, there are places where I'm more likely to get beaten to death for looking white than others. I am writing to you today, not as a blogger or an activist, a provacateur or whatever it is you think I am, but as a mathematician, and it is as a mathematician that I say this...
I hate the fuckin police.
My reasons are threefold:
1. Overwhelmingly, they know next to nothing about mathematics and art, and when you remove mathematics and art from the world, then what is left?
2.They're only out to fuck up a good time (as I've stated earlier)
3. They ask a lot of rhetorical questions, questioms they don't expect me to have an answer for.
It was on 4th of July, the freest day of the year, that I had my last run in with Chicago's finest. We were in a neighborhood that, arguably, we shouldn't have been in, en route from a far scarier neighborhood, when we stopped to catch some fireworks. It was me on my tricycle, Sarah on her bicycle, and Jesse on his chopper. When the cops came to confiscate fireworks (thus fucking up a good time), we were a bonus. With our hands on the hood of the car, they started asking their questions.
"How would you like it if some thugs beat the shit out of you, dragged your girlfriend into an abandoned building, and there are seven of em on this block, and had 15 or so of em gang bang her day and night for three days?"
Hmm. 15 thugs gang raping my girlfriend for three days in one of seven abandoned buildings, after beating me unconscious or worse. How would I like it?
Now, of course, I'd feel terrible but I knew that this wasn't the type of question I was supposed to answer. Meanwhile, the math tutor part of my brain clicked on and, suddenly, I saw the problem.
If 15 thugs were to rape my girlfriend in each of the seven abandoned buildings on Homan and Chicago, day and night for three days. For what amount of time would each thug individually be raping her?
The first thing you do is convert the days to minutes. We all know that three days is the same as saying 72 hours and that each hour has 60 minutes, so you multiply 72 by 60 and you find out that three days is equal to 4,320 minutes. Keep that number in the back of your head, you're going to need it again in a minute.
Now you're going to multiply the number of thugs by the number of abandoned buildings, that's fifteen times seven, which is 105. We're going to take that number and divide it into 4,320 (the number of minutes in threer days). You wind up withy each thug raping my girlfriend Sarah for 31.6 minutes, per building, per day, if each thug used an equal amount of time to rape her.
If any of you got the same number, give yourself a pat on the back. If you got something else, remember to stay in school. Remember, learning can be fun when you apply it to real life!
*I swear that this is funny on stage, but I've got a feeling that it just looks cruel in print. C'est la vie.
[Currently listening: Crucial Conflict]
I hate the fuckin police.
My reasons are threefold:
1. Overwhelmingly, they know next to nothing about mathematics and art, and when you remove mathematics and art from the world, then what is left?
2.They're only out to fuck up a good time (as I've stated earlier)
3. They ask a lot of rhetorical questions, questioms they don't expect me to have an answer for.
It was on 4th of July, the freest day of the year, that I had my last run in with Chicago's finest. We were in a neighborhood that, arguably, we shouldn't have been in, en route from a far scarier neighborhood, when we stopped to catch some fireworks. It was me on my tricycle, Sarah on her bicycle, and Jesse on his chopper. When the cops came to confiscate fireworks (thus fucking up a good time), we were a bonus. With our hands on the hood of the car, they started asking their questions.
"How would you like it if some thugs beat the shit out of you, dragged your girlfriend into an abandoned building, and there are seven of em on this block, and had 15 or so of em gang bang her day and night for three days?"
Hmm. 15 thugs gang raping my girlfriend for three days in one of seven abandoned buildings, after beating me unconscious or worse. How would I like it?
Now, of course, I'd feel terrible but I knew that this wasn't the type of question I was supposed to answer. Meanwhile, the math tutor part of my brain clicked on and, suddenly, I saw the problem.
If 15 thugs were to rape my girlfriend in each of the seven abandoned buildings on Homan and Chicago, day and night for three days. For what amount of time would each thug individually be raping her?
The first thing you do is convert the days to minutes. We all know that three days is the same as saying 72 hours and that each hour has 60 minutes, so you multiply 72 by 60 and you find out that three days is equal to 4,320 minutes. Keep that number in the back of your head, you're going to need it again in a minute.
Now you're going to multiply the number of thugs by the number of abandoned buildings, that's fifteen times seven, which is 105. We're going to take that number and divide it into 4,320 (the number of minutes in threer days). You wind up withy each thug raping my girlfriend Sarah for 31.6 minutes, per building, per day, if each thug used an equal amount of time to rape her.
If any of you got the same number, give yourself a pat on the back. If you got something else, remember to stay in school. Remember, learning can be fun when you apply it to real life!
*I swear that this is funny on stage, but I've got a feeling that it just looks cruel in print. C'est la vie.
[Currently listening: Crucial Conflict]
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