fandomhigh | MATHS CLASSES: WEDNESDAY 26.10

MATHS CLASSES: WEDNESDAY 26.10

Charlie is surrounded by a stack of old books, crumpled pieces of paper, and pencils. He's writing eagerly on one of the blackboards. The heading he's written is: Probability Calculation: Migrasjon.

He waits until everybody in a group has arrived. "Joan Girardi and Kimberly Shaw are no longer enrolled in this class ~~and have possibly been eaten~~. This means that there's an open place in Intermediate, if you know of anyone who might wish to join us.

This is the attendance I have counted thus far, please let me know if I have made any mistakes." He gives them all a copy of their attendance record, as well as todays problems.

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"Yeah," he said. "Object of the game is to try to get the dice to come up with the numbers you need." He grinned. "I'm assuming for the example that they're not weighted."

Lily looks confused. "Right... because weighted dice would...?"

"Oh," Angelus said, realizing the scope of the culture difference. He began to sketch a six-sided die on his notebook paper. "They'd be more inclined to come up with a specific number, which makes them useful for cheating. But with regular dice you've got one in six odds of any number coming up. See? Each side gets a dot to indicate what the number is."

Lily smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

She took out a fresh sheet of paper and started writing:

Player A:
6/6 = [1 in 6] x [1 in 6] = [1 in 36]

"Does that look right?"

"So far," Angelus said.

"Okay, and then Player B wants to get sevens, so that could be 2 and 5, 3 and 4, 1 and 6... and the reverse of those, right? Six possible combinations?"

"Right again," Angelus said, looking like he was starting to understand where she was going with this.

Lily writes some more:

1/6, 6/1, 2/5, 5/2, 3/4, 4/3
Each= [1 in 6] x [1 in 6] = [1 in 36]

[1 in 36] x 6 = [1 in 6]

"So it's a one in six chance of rolling a seven on the first try."

"Seems to be," Angelus said. "But what about the second?"

"Would it be the exact same odds for the second roll? And then we'd have to add... no, multiply those together?"

"Pretty sure it's multiply," Angelus said.

"Okay, so..."

[1 in 6] x [1 in 6] = [1 in 36]

"The odds are the same? That just doesn't seem right. Did we miss something?"

"We had to," Angelus said. "No way does the prof give us a puzzle that's that clear cut. Plus I know that's not it. I've played dice more times than most people have had hot dinners and I'm telling you my money's on A. It's like firing a gun, I couldn't tell you the physics but I sure as hell tell you if it's going to hit the target."

Angelus tilted his chair back. He folded his arms and rocked the chair as he thought. "Okay, picture it. We're in Vegas - you ever been to Vegas?"

Lily smiles at his confidence. "No - I've heard of it, though. Somewhere out West, right?"

"Never?" Angelus asked. "Oh no. We've got to fix that. You'll love it. Draco too. Heck, we should make a field trip out of it. Get the gang together. You guys can't be doing anything for Thanksgiving, right? You're British."

"Never," she said. "If it's as great as you say, I would love to go, and Thanksgiving would be the perfect time." Lily started to get excited about the prospect of getting off campus.

"We will make this happen," Angelus started to write some names down on a blank space in his notebook. "I'll send an email out to everybody. Road trip. We can take a plane or - " He paused, thinking about it " - hey, can Draco teleport stuff? You know, with magic? Bel can but I'm thinking a group this big might be too much for him."

Lily thought for a moment. "Well, there was a floo network set up in England - travel by fireplace... I know Draco can apparate, but that's just for himself or possibly one person at a time. We could always try a portkey, but I'll have to ask him if he knows the spell for creating one. We'll come up with something. Oh, Angel! This is going to be amazing!"

"This is going to be the best," Angelus promised her. He was grinning with excitement too. "Trust me, I was there when they built the place and it's only gotten better. We'll get in some gambling, see some shows - Cirque Du Soleil, need I say more?"

Lily laughed. "Well, you could explain to me what 'Cirque Du Soleil' is, for a start."

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[ooc: BTW, you are an angel, no pun intended, for walking him through this. He'll have an opinion if she says it's an even chance or odds in favor of player B, but there's no way I could keep him IC and say he could figure that out based on knowing the formulas. Knowing gambling OTOH... ahh, that's a different story.

Just so you don't think he's not contributing anything to the study buddy party ;) ]

[ooc: Hey, if she was good at potions there had to be some math knowledge in there somewhere, right? And he'll get to the answer eventually. He just got totally distracted on this Vegas thing which I swear did not occur to him nor me until just now. But you can't say it wouldn't be fun if they could pull it off.]

[ooc: I am geniunely surprised he didn't think of it sooner. He loves Vegas. And it's not like he doesn't know his friends enjoy gambling ~~and getting into trouble~~ ;) ]

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