Steven's Stories

This is a post which I wanted to put up at the end of my semester and before the exams, but didn't get to finish it. Now here it is.





Well, exams are coming up pretty soon, so haven't had the time to blog. Today marks the end of teaching period and the entering of the crucial examination phase of the semester. What better way to sum up the whole semester than with stories told by my lecturer for Risk Theory STAT 3035, Dr Steven E. Stern.

To see how he looks like, checkout: http://ecocomm.anu.edu.au/people/info.asp?Surname=Stern&Firstname=Steven




The "Clearly" Story

This is a story about Norbert Wiener, the famous mathematician. During one of his lectures in MIT, he was writing down equations on the board and then he said "CLEARLY, xxxx = yyyy...". He then paused and stared at what he had just written for a while, and the subsequently exited the lecture hall. All the students were stunned and dumbfounded. "Why did the professor leave the room?" "Is he coming back?" So they waited, for a while, for some time, for a long time, but the professor did not reappear. The students were confused at this time, whether to leave or to stay. At this moment, Norbert Wiener came back into the lecture hall, and continued "Yes. Clearly, xxxx = yyyy."

For information and more interesting stories about him, checkout:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener

The "Light is brighter" Story

One day, this policeman was patrolling this shanty part of town. He was walking along this dark alley, and along the two sides of the road were gutters filled with thrash, a whole lot of thrash. As he continued walking, he saw ahead was a man under a bright street lamp. This man was dressed in tuxedo, wearing a tall hat, and surprisingly, rummaging through the rubbish in the gutter. This policeman was rather intrigued by the scene and decided to ask the man what he was doing. "Hi sir, may I ask what you are up to?" "Oh I'm searching for my watch which I've lost," replied the man. So as a kind policeman, he decided to help the man search for his watch. After searching for half an hour through the piles of stinking rubbish filling the gutters, they still have not found the watch. So the policeman decided to ask the man "Are you sure you lost your watch here?" Which the man replied "No, I lost it over there [points to another pile of rubbish in a dark area], but the light is brighter here."



This story was used by Steven to describe our use of approximations to find an answer to various variables throughout the course.





The Pot Story



As a clarification, the pot here refers to pot as in pots and pans, not pot as in the other meaning, you know... Yeah, so before I start with the story, I must let you know that this story is not funny. It is as it is, just a story.
So there's this big financial company which is embarking on this project and needs to employ a talent in this field for the job. They sent out ads for the job, and received thousands of applicants for the job. So the selection panel decided to set up a test for them to complete, which helped them to eliminate the number to about a hundred. Which they then proceed to conduct a few rounds of interview which managed to land the final two applicants for the job. One is an actuary and one is a mathematician. So the selection panel was at a lost of how to choose between the two of them. Then this statistician who was among them, who hasn't spoke throughout the whole time, came up with an idea. The others who never quite took note of the statistician the whole time, decided to listen to him, since they had no other plans. So the actuary was called in the next day, and the mathematician the day after.
The next day, the blurry-eyed actuary came in early in the morning, and met the tester. "So what do you want me to do for the test?" The tester asked him to proceed to the adjacent room. In the room was a pot of water in the centre of the room, a window on one side of the room, and a boiler in one corner of the room, which was connected to a power socket on the wall. The tester said "The test is to show that you can boil some water." The actuary was rather confused by the request, but then since he has came so far, he might as well proceed with it. He took the pot of water from the centre of the room and placed it on the boiler, flick on the switch, wait for a couple of minutes, and showed the tester the boiling water. The tester put a tick on the sheet of paper. The next day, the mathematician came in, and proceeded to do exactly the same test. He too showed the tester he could boil the water in the pot with the boiler. So back to the selection panel who couldn't understand the test. The statistician came up with another idea for a test. So the actuary was called in the morning of the next day, and the mathematician in the afternoon.
The actuary came in the next day and asked the tester for his test. He was told to proceed to the next room. The room was the same as the other day, except the pot this time was on the window sill. So the tester told him to show that he could boil some water, again. He proceeded to fetch the pot of water from the window sill to the boiler and then heat up the water to boil. So the tester gave a tick on the sheet of paper. Then later on, the mathematician arrived. He went into the next room, and it was as the actuary has seen, the pot of water on the window sill. The tester told him to boil some water as the test. So gleefully, he took the pot of water from the window sill, and put it in the centre of the room.
The End.

FYI: The mathematician got the job.

That's all folks for this time. I'll be away in Central Australia for the next 12 days. So hope it'll be fun. will come back with loads of pictures. Adios