• Question: do you still enjoy doing maths

    Asked by wych522fees on 18 Nov 2024. This question was also asked by team522fees, need522fees, fear522fees, suns522fees, fact522wasp, case522wasp, just522wasp, push522wasp.
    • Photo: Amy Mason

      Amy Mason answered on 18 Nov 2024:

      Oh yes! I really like maths. It’s my familiar tool, so when I have a problem I will often use calculations or a small coding project to solve it when other people would take a different approach.

      For example, I do a lot of LARP – live action roleplay – and one of the problems in running LARPs is casting. You tend to have more people wanting to play than you have room for in the game, but you have a bunch of restrictions in which roles they will play. Some people only want to play certain factions, or certain character classes. Others will want to play together in a group with their friends. Yet others may not want to play closely with someone they know they don’t get on with.
      Most people solve this by hand, allocating people to roles and then adjusting the casting until everyone is happyish with what they have.
      I solved it with matrix algebra to describe all the dimensions of valid casting options and then used probability to weight it so that everyone has an equal chance of being cast. Much better!
      Obviously I am extremely cool and not at all a giant nerd.

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