You know, I think you were talking about averages. We were all talking about Mensa - no, Merit (Mensat?) and I think you said something about averaging all the people together and coming up with something. At the time, I was thinking that you better toss out the low one. But there's that weird, inexplicable rule in "professional" averaging, that if you toss out the low one you have to toss out the high one. What that has to do with getting the result you want, I don't know.
Anyway, so then I didn't want to toss out the high one. Because we might need it. Then I started to circulate through my list of the high ones here, and they're pretty much all stuck to the ceiling, like birthday balloons.
So you could just pick any one, to toss out; it wouldn't matter. But then it got complicated because I can't figure out what effect that would have in total. Would it be better to leave the low and that high in there. Well, it would depend on how low the low was. I looked under the table to see what was down there, and there's my placemat tag.
Eeek.
That's pretty extreme.
So I thought, "This tells me something about averages. What."
I wish I could remember.
I remember thinking about little ball-like planet things, and getting them close to the center. Like weights, like balance.
Visual thinker, see.
But they're not like planets, obviously. They're moving the wrong direction, and in 3D; and 3D averaging has been invented, I bet, but I need to finish this first.
So rings on a bar. A shower curtain.
You have a bunch of rings down there, and one at this end. (Are you getting this? Speed me up if you can.) The bar is magically held very steady, because otherwise you would soon lose all your data. (Also called "losing your place.") Data is your seat at the bar. This is "The Norm." That's a joke I'm making up; it's not really history. I thought of it when I thought of seats at a bar. I don't know what "The Norms" are.
Or, the rings could be tempo-rubber-cemented into place. That might be better. People get queasy if you bring magic into experiments. I also couldn't figure out how to do it, and I need to stay on task here, because I bet I could figure out some magic.
You can do a lot of things with rubber cement.
Okay, the bar. Lots of rings down there. They're over by the window, that's where I see them. The question for the next step is whether to get rid of the ring at this end for one of the rings at that end. There you go. That is the question.
I don't know. I wish I had a shower rod.
But we're going to try to work this out mathematically. Mathematics is for this very situation, when you don't have what you need to figure it out with, you do. You have mathematics.
If you know how to think. And learn.
Okay. ("It's always hard, right before you get it. Learning is hard.") Yah right.
Okay. So take one off at this end, and the farthest one at that end, or leave them all together. Well, if we had the answer, we would know which one to do.
But that would just be following instructions, instead of helping. And there's no one here, so that's out anyway.
I thought of this thing as a balance beam. And weights. But a balance has a center, and that center is not the average. I got that by looking at it. The balance point moves. The Average is a new place, maybe where the beam "ends up" balancing.
And these, are these like weights? Or are they just points. Doesn't matter I don't think, yet.
Let's not worry, and keep going, because we're on a roll. I can tell Alex is getting excited.
He's squirming.
Do you have to go, Alex?
The only way out of this I can think, without the shower rod, is to ascribe number positions to the rings. I think, think, this would be identical to weight. But anyway, the rings do inherently have numbers, as they are data. Points. Representations of intelligence tests, that somebody else gave. They're giving us the results, and that's how we knew where all the rings were in the first place.
Okay. So one to seven. It doesn't matter, trust me. One to seven. And we'll make it one to seven on this side? Uh oh. Negative intelligence. Uh oh. This isn't working now.
Well, let's salvage, and make it one to seven with zero at this end. And then look for the balance-center. I think I can live with that. So seven sevens, and a one. This is exciting. We're going to get an answer. Where the balance should be. And then we're going to try it with the ends off, and compare. I can't believe this. I thought I was going to have to give up.
7x7=49+1=50/8people = 6 1/4
So that shower rod should balance at 6 1/4. That's pretty high. Way to go gang. (I made pink marks with Penni's polish.)
Toss out the high and low now:
6x7=42/6=people = 7
Oh dear.
Time for lunch. |
