Apple’s “Back to School” program doesn’t add up
As any faithful reader will tell you, math is not my strong suit. Nor is spelling, grammar, science, or hygiene for that matter, which is why I like to leave the heavy thinking to my readers. Case in point, faithful Macenstein reader Aaron has noticed that the student pictured in Apple’s latest Back-to-School promo might be getting less than a stellar education.
“Hey Doc, Check out Apple’s back-to-school promo ad banner from their own website. Note “FIG 5.11″ on the chalk board is exactly wrong. To the left of n=1 should be n<1 and to the right, n>1. I mean, check my math (I usually do), but I’m fairly confident about this one.”
Yes Aaron, you’re correct. I just had the boys in the lab check it, and it appears that “The Bird” is equal to or greater THAN the word. Nice catch!
Lucky for her, it doesn’t look like she needs to worry about an education.
And that satisfies my sexist comment for the week.
First of all, it’s not an “n”, it’s a lowercase eta. And it isn’t necessarily the x-axis variable on the graph. (The x-axis should be labeled, but that’s a separate issue.)
So while I can’t say whether it’s entirely correct due to a lack of information on what the graph depicts, Aaron’s analysis (and that of your boys in the lab) at least appears to be incorrectly interpreting it in claiming that it is wrong.
just because its on the chalkboard, doesn’t mean its right!
many teachers ask students to write on the board, and yes students can be very wrong a lot of the time, but in being wrong, a great lesson is always learned!
“Shop Now!” to find out!
Must agree with Bob. Not necessarily the x value in the graph. Thought the x-axis may be labeled behind the girl.
If you look on the right above her left shoulder, this seems to be satistics. Reminds me of the variance for a discret law. But the notation would be incorrect. On the top left you see a mean of 9.5… well doesn’t really matter, but if it’s statistics, then the graph may be related to derivatives and you could have your answer there.
I was never great at math, but I DID manage to memorize the alphabet, and it looks like an n to me…
But I’ve never heard of an lowercase eta, or an uppercase one for that matter
Greek letters are often used in math. May I suggest this picture
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Greek_eta.png
n indeed looks like eta and is often confusing.
So is mu an u
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Greek_mu.png
How about economics? The greek symbol represents “elasticity of demand.” The vertical axis (TR) represents total revenue. If this is the case, the horizontal axis would actually be the reciprocal of the price of the product. The graph, therefore, shows what is happening to total revenue (total expenditures on a good) as you raise the price of the good. When the elasticity of demand is less than one, total revenue rises as the price rises, when the elasticity of demand is equal to one, total revenue remains constant, and when demand is elastic (greater than one), total revenue decreases as the price of the good increases.
I knew my economics would be good for something!
This is actually a graph of the number of chairs thrown by Balmy Steve upon hearing news of impending Apple products. Hence TR for Throw ratio. It shows that as more news of Apple’s latest hit becomes available the number of chairs thrown by Steve increases until the product is intrducoed. Then as the news drops off so do the number of chairs he throws.
“faithful Macenstein reader Aaron” just got pwned!
Aaron seems to have a lot of time on his hands. Perhaps he can enroll in some math courses. Or business courses. Either way he’d learn that marketing people can’t do maths.
Hu! That’s odd… there seems to be an absence of an certain ornithological piece.
Some comments regarding to the mass awareness of a certain avian variety.
I mean, as Dr. Macenstein clearly stated here: “The Bird” is equal to or greater THAN the word” and that is, what the guys in the lab confirmed!
Have you not heard?
It was my understanding that everyone has heard.
Ask Youtube if you do not a believe this! http://youtu.be/2WNrx2jq184
My question is how the Girl managed to balance the Mac Book so the iPod doesn’t fall off.
I stand corrected. Faithful commenter Michael nailed it with price elasticity:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Price_elasticity_of_demand_and_revenue.png
and this would no doubt lead to the next post being about how well educated even apple’s advertisement models are. “You wanna talk about total revenue?? check out this cool new macbook…Peep the TR Apple gets on THIS bad boy.”