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A comment on Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics. Parent comment

Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by pessimizer on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @07:52PM (#28767291)
> > 16. If you let a 100g strawberry that is 99% water by mass dehydrate such that the water now accounts for 98% of the total mass then its new mass is 50g: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_paradox

>I really like this one. It's a perfect combo of intuitive from one perspective and mind bending from another.

Comes up a lot lately because of vaccine effectiveness e.g. 95% is twice as effective as 90%.

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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by sib on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @12:07AM (#28769085)
It's probably more intuitive if you say that it's "half as ineffective"
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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by Gibbon1 on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @12:52AM (#28769333)
I first saw this in a discussion of power supply efficiency. A 95% efficient supply generates ~half the heat that a 90% one does.
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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by umvi on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @10:06PM (#28768363)
Wait, how is 95% effective twice as effective as 90%?
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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by fgonzag on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @12:31AM (#28769219)
just as going from 98% effectiveness to 99% effectiveness halves your risk (you go from 2% chance of falling ill to 1%)

its a common concept in games in which armor follows a linear formula (each point of armor is more effective than the last when calculating effective health)

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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by anthk on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @06:42AM (#28771446)
Then there's the polynomial wizard.
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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by zbaxrl on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @10:31PM (#28768487)
90% is 1 in 10, 95% is 1 in 20.
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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by anandoza on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @10:12PM (#28768397)
It halves your risk.
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Re:Conterintuitive facts in mathematics, CS, and physics by xarope on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @09:20PM (#28767997)
and sunscreen (SPF) calculations...
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