Re: Math Question

a_weisman_at_yahoo.com
Date: 03/29/05 

Date: 29 Mar 2005 06:10:20 -0800

derdrittemann2003@yahoo.com wrote:
> zipzip wrote:
> > a_weisman@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> > > I'm trying to figure out how many different bracket entries there
> > could
> > > be--unique bracket entries.
> >
> >
> > "by the way i had louisville and unc in my final 4 bracket. (i also
> had
> > them loosing to oklahoma st and conneticut)".
>
> Zip:
>
> Terri Schiavo could pick better than that.

LOL Well didn't you hear from her family and friends how
"communicative" she is?

Quite an achievement considering that her brain stem is MUSH.

Sorta explains l & K being able to post

> Or...you could just go to Wendy's...order the chili, and pick the
team
> the finger points to.
>
> LOL.Typical eastern provincialism. (*** Viatle is a MORON
BAAAYBEEE)!
>
> Right now...the conference with the best record in the
tournament...BIG
> TEN.
>
> Most teams in the Final Four...BIG TEN.

Wait till next year!

> Weisman:
>
> WHY in the hell would you want to know this?

> Are you trying to drive the few on this board who have NOT been
> previously involuntarily committed into a state facility with this
damn
> question?

I knew it wasn't fair to ask since we were all promised there'd be NO
MATH PROBLEMS on the test here but, it is driving me batty. I don't
even know how to conceive of the problem properly much less do the
math.

Even if martijn was right, I don't know how to compute 1.12275575 ×
10^44 WHAT would the actual number be?

> Unfortunately...I think the correct answer is much more complicated
> than running a straight calculation of the possible
> combinations...because the possible combinations ARE limited by the
> playoff structure.

I sorta thought so. But even thinking about the math problem here makes
my brain stem liquify a la terry schiavo.

> I think Martijn sort of has the right idea...but you need to run the
> tournament in reverse...if I am correct...the greatest number of
> possible pairings would actually be for the final round...where any
ONE
> team from one region could be paired (hypothetically) with any one of
> all the other beginning teams of the other region.
>
> The final round is, for instance, the only place where Illinois, for
> example, can meet North Carolina...and Illinois cannot meet, say,
> Louisville there, either.
>
> You have to allow for the combinations that CANNOT occur...and that
is
> more complicated.

I was just wondering about office pools. HOw many unique entries there
could be in an office pool. I KNOW that people are unlikely to choose
all possibilities (who has 16 seeds knocking off 1 seeds for example).

So I played in a couple of online pools, like ESPN and CBS sportsline.
Millions of people play. I was wondering how many possible unique
entries there could be? And it just started bothering me and I realized
that I have no way of figuring it out because I am SEVERELY math
challenged when it comes to things like this and like many WORSE still
after Lyme (I doubt I could have done this one BEFORE the lyme).

And once something like this starts bugging me, well, it just keeps
bugging me, and so I asked my friends here because a few of them are
pretty damned smart (eugene, zip, you).

Of course none of us are analytical chemists, the HIGHEST calling of
man and reservoir of all wisdom, so I doubt we have any chance of
figuring it out?