Dr. Pepper

Oy Vey, you must have a bad headache. A straight line along the y-axis is denoted by x = 0.

y = 1/(1 + x^2) is a function of x so it can not possibly be a vertical line!

The graph resembles the Bell Curve, but the area between the bell curve and the x-axis is 1.

Hope you feel better soon.

yossi z.

Great to hear all the Mazel Tovs. Can’t wait until they’re old enough to join the CR Room. (Even if they don’t have RAS Syndrome.)

I can only try-

When we were learning the Megilla in 4th grade our Rebbe pointed out one of the places (?????? ????????? ??????? ???????) to show that even though His name is not mentioned anywhere in the Megilla, never the less He was still “lurking” in the background.

Four years later a cousin of mine who was a very talented Baal Korei was laining the Megilla for the first time. (He was also a recent Bar Mitzvah at the time but regrettably he didn’t continue his talent as he got older.) I teased him that if he really knows the whole Megilla inside out, backwards and forwards he should show me where the name of Hashem is hidden. To my surprise he showed me three additional places as well.

It’s great to be back! Where did all my friends go? (I can’t even click under their name to see when they last posted.)

There are 4 places in the Megilla (that I know of) where we find four words in a row where the first (or last) letters spell Hashems name (both forward and backwards).

Where are these Pesukim?

AZ-

I picked up a Yated this week to read the ad and I now have even more questions about the NASI Project than I had before.

To begin- what does the number 760 represent? Is that the amount of monetary prizes they awarded in the past two years? If so I don’t see that as much of a success that 760 matches were made in the past two years that were eligible for the prize. If the NASI Project set up the 760 couples then that would be impressive but the number 760 is too large to believe.

Secondly- the Kol Korei was not included in the ad. I’m still very curious to see the wording that was signed. Furthermore there was not a single name of any of the Rabbonim who endorse the NASI Project mentioned in the ad. (“Ziknei Yisroel” is a rather broad statement.)

Third- the e-mail address listed as the contact info implied that the NASI Project owned a domain name, if so the cost would be minimal to create a website that has a mission statement and a copy of the Kol Korei.

Fourth- The ad asked each family with children of eligible marriage age to donate $50 to the NASI Project, the address listed (for both the U.S. and Canada) did not contain the name of a human. For someone like me who only heard of the NASI Project from YWN and can not validate it’s legitimacy I find it very suspicious to see an ad they placed asking for a considerable amount of money with no name attached to the organization.

rebetzin-

You’re right, many boys are very picky, I should know- I was one of them.

But I didn’t go complaining to shadchanim that they weren’t doing anything for me (I never even asked any shadchan to put my name on their list- they always got my name from somewhere/someone else).

(If a shadchan would threaten my mother that unless I (or at times one of my brothers) go out with whoever they were suggesting they would never call back, my mother would remind them that she never asked them to call in the first place. I don’t know of any shadchan that stopped calling.)

As my father told me many times while I was dating, “You weren’t put in this world to end the shidduch crisis (or even put a dent into it). Your responsibility is to marry the person who you feel will be the best wife for you and the best mother for your children.”

People are complaining that girls are too picky since it’s when the girls get older that people begin to notice the “shidduch crisis”, not when the guys get older.

cherrybim-

Dr. Pepper – “Numbers don’t lie, they are what they are. The way they are presented is what may trick people”

So they do lie.

By “numbers” I mean raw data. Let’s take an extreme example 2 girls in the graduating class of 2000. Now, 9 years later, 1 is married and 1 is single.

There are ways to bias this data and make it look like a crisis:

“50% of the class is still single” or

“Out of the whole class only one girl is married”.

While each statement is technically correct I would venture that most people would consider them very close to a lie, if not an outright lie. The raw data itself (1 married, 1 single) is what it is and does not lie.

“I do know that the principle makes it his business to be at the weddings of as many of his students as possible.”

This is a poor way of conducting a statistical survey and the results would be meaningless. In addition, school personnel come and go and many graduates do not keep ties with the school for many various reasons. To conduct a meaningful study the researcher must use accepted methodology and research standards.

This kind of research is very discrete (either a status of “married” or “single”). The school my wife went to keeps updated alumni lists (for fundraisers) so it does not matter which school personnel came and went, the files are still at the school. Even if some students moved away without telling the school they probably have friends who know what they are up to. In the rare event that someone falls of the radar screen and can not be tracked then they should be removed from the grand total of graduates.

Just so no one loses any sleep over this.

A family has two children, there are 4 possible scenarios:

Boy Boy

Boy Girl

Girl Boy

Girl Girl

Since one of the children is a girl there are only three possible scenarios:

Boy Girl

Girl Boy

Girl Girl

Of those three scenarios only one has the desired outcome.

Therefore the probability is 1/3.

QED

(I remember this problem from a probability course. There is actually a massive machlokes between some really great math nerds, I’m not saying what side I’m on, but I knew that if truthsharer was asking this question he was probably not looking for the obvious answer.)

See you all in the morning.

Put 8 small cubes together to make one larger cube. You now have 93 small cubes and 1 large cube or 94 all together. Each person gets 47 cubes which is an odd number.

QED

YW Moderator-80-

I answered that without reading the question carefully because I had to run to Mincha. I realized later that the answer is incorrect.

Here it goes.

Mr. Product: I do not know the numbers.

=> Either none of the numbers are prime or one of the numbers is prime but not both. (If both numbers are prime then Mr. Product would just factor the product and have the number.)

Mr. Sum: I knew you didn’t knew [sic] the numbers.

=> The sum can’t be even. (Goldbach’s conjecture – Every even integer greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes. Therefore the sum can’t be even or it can be written as the sum of two primes which we know the numbers are not two primes. Sorry everyone but the proof is beyond the scope of this thread.)

=> One number must be odd and one number must be even.

=> The product must be even.

Mr. Product: Now I know the numbers

=> There is one unique way to attain that product using an odd number and an even number. (There is at least one other way, possibly more, to attain that product using two even numbers since one number must be composite.)

Mr. Sum: Now I know the numbers, too.

=> All of us in the CR also do!

4 & 13

There aren’t as many possibilities as you may think once you start throwing out possible pairs based on criteria. The upper bound is “red herring” as it will be the same answer regardless on whether it is 15 or 1,000,000. I tried an upper bound of 10 and found no solution. When I raised it to 15 I found this solution which I believe is the only solution regardless of the upper bound.

I don’t have the answer yet, I only did as much as I could think of mentally while on the train this morning. The hint I wanted to give is just to notify others that a not-so-famous conjecture may be needed.

This is different for those in different circles, but I felt it was getting serious when we dropped the shadchan.

I can only try-

Take seven Nickels (or any coin for that matter but preferably without ridges), put one in the center and the other six around it. Look closely and you will see a space between two of the coins. That space is twice the decimal of PI (multiplied by a constant).

Let’s say Mr. Director starts a pattern that is a family of concentric circles centered at the center of the table. In each subsequent circle the little space will get bigger and bigger until there is room for another quarter. Once there is an odd amount of quarters in a circle there will be a space for Mr. Director to place a quarter without a corresponding spot on the “other” side of the table.

QED

I can only try-

OK I gave it an hour and no one answered.

Change is good: I

I would remove 1 on my first turn.

Each subsequent turn I would pick the amount that when added to the amount he took would equal 7. (If he picked 2 I would pick 5…)

Therefore 1 => 8 => 15 => 22 => 29 => 36 => 43.

There are now seven pennies left.

Any number he chooses to remove now will leave as little as one and as much as six left. I choose the rest and win!

AZ-

I agree with you that the way to tackle the problem is to begin with the root of the problem but I disagree with you that the age gap is the root of the problem, I think it’s a byproduct.

There is an underlying reason why bochurim are marrying wives who are considerably younger than them. I think the place to begin is by asking chasanim why they didn’t choose a spouse closer in age.

I was just playing along. I’m not sure if you know what I wrote but I definitely didn’t mean to create anything but a chuckle.

squeak-

That wasn’t nice. If she agreed to go out with him she should give him the three hours just to not hurt his feelings. Was she doing anything more productive anyway?

But here’s one for you;

You had converted a non-shidduch story to a shidduch story (2 or 3 pages back). Without changing any of the constants can you convert the following (true) story into a shidduch story.

After learning in Kollel for a few years I discussed the topic with my Rosh Hayeshiva of getting a full time job- partly for financial reasons but mainly for medical benefits. With his bracha I began my search.

A neighbor who knew I was looking for a job told me that he told Rabbi L., the secular Principal of a respected Yeshiva that I would love to become his math teacher for grades 9 – 12. “This would be great for you since you can still learn on the morning!”. I explained that a part time job will not work since I wouldn’t be eligible for medical benefits. He apologized but asked if I could call Rabbi L. at 1:00 since he’s waiting for my call (and the neighbor was going out of town).

1:00 found me and my wife at a pizza shop. I asked my wife to hold on for what I thought would be a short phone call to Rabbi L.

Here’s how it went.

Rabbi L.: “Hello, this is Rabbi L.”

Me: “Hi, This is Avi Pepper”

Rabbi L.: “Thank you so much for calling, I’ve been waiting for your phone call”

Me: “I hope I’m not disappointing you but this wasn’t the kind of job I was looking for”

Rabbi L.: “Please don’t be offended- but we are actually looking for someone who is older (I was in my late 20s at the time) with a higher level of education (I only had a masters at the time) and more experience (I had taught for four years).

Me: “I’m sorry if you misunderstood what I was saying, I’m actually looking for an office job, not a teaching job.”

Rabbi L.: “You have to understand where I’m coming from, we’re a very prestigious yeshiva and we can only hire the best educators.”

Me: “Uh, I’m not looking for a teaching position”

Rabbi L.: “Don’t get dejected just yet, there are many other yeshivas, albeit not as good as ours, who don’t try to fill openings until the end of July”

Me: “Rabbi L., it’s been a pleasure talking to you, I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer”

Rabbi L.: “Thanks, and if I hear of any other opening I’ll definitely tell them about you and keep you informed”

Rabbi L.: (Hangs Up.)

Me: (To the delight of my wife and everyone around me who over heard the conversation) “WAIT, DOES THAT MEAN I START ON MONDAY?”

I read this on someones blog years ago.

… so I took my date out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Her fortune was “You will try something new in the near future”. She’s on to the next guy, I’m still looking…

Arafat won the prize in 1994!

mybat-

squeak offered to help me write one but it never happened.

Josephf- I never read that book but it was written before my wife or I became Doctors. (And I highly doubt it is about my father or the famous soft drink which is spelled “Dr Pepper”, not “Dr. Pepper”.)

I got free tickets to the New York Aquarium and asked a neighbor who babysits for us if she wanted to join us. She was a couple of years away from dating but was nervous about it anyway and was asking us tons of questions the whole trip.

(What should I do if the guy proposes and I like him but I’m not ready to commit yet? I can’t say yes and if I say no he might want to end it!…)

When we were near the shark exhibit it started raining really hard so we waited under the hangover by the exhibit.

That’s when we saw them- Zalman and Zelda (sorry we never got their real names) on a date- totally oblivious to their surroundings.

“Here’s a pop quiz for you” I said to the babysitter, “Give me three ways I can tell that they are on their first date?”.

She couldn’t name any of them so I gave her the answers.

1. He is wearing a jacket, tie and hat on a hot summer day in August at the aquarium.

2. He’s holding an umbrella, large enough for both of them, totally over her while he is getting drenched.

3. He is showing off his encyclopedic knowledge on salamanders while she is soaking up every word that he is saying.

“Well actually”, my wife added, “Those are the three ways I can tell that they are on their last date!”

I heard someone speaking (in 2006) and he brought up the September 11th attacks. It was a moving speech as he dramatically stressed some interesting facts, like “This is the first incident since July 4th, 1776 where the incident is referred to by the date. The Challenger Disaster is not known as January 28th, the assassination of JFK is not known as November 22nd…”

He then paused for a few moments and started talking about the Holocaust. “People are able to deny the Holocaust today because the average person can’t visualize the number six million. The number one hundred thousand sounds much larger, yet it is only one sixtieth the size. Let’s try to look at it another way. The Holocaust was one September 11th every single day for five and one half years. Imagine one September 11th beginning on September 11th 2001, it would still be going on now and wouldn’t end until March of next year!”

I thought I’d bring this up since there are those in the U.N. who deny the Holocaust yet would consider it foolish to try and deny the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001.

Probably not a true story but…

The shadchan tells the guy wonderful things about the girl and oh, by the way she’s heavily medicated.

“What’s she on?” the guy wants to know.

“They never told me”, replied the shadchan. “Here’s an idea, when you go to pick her up ask to use the restroom and check the medicine cabinet.”

So he goes to pick her up, asks to use the bathroom and when he opens the door to the cabinet a few hundred marbles came crashing out.

He didn’t end up taking her out. (Last time I heard this story, about 7 years ago, he was still in the bathroom.)