A Problem Squared 125 = Toots from Bums and Attitude Sums
Jan 5, 2026
Dive into the quirky world of farts and numbers! Discover how many people are needed for guaranteed farting and explore the charming math behind it. Learn about Matt's homemade sea salt adventure and its comedic branding dilemmas. Plus, find out which words can numerically sum to 100, with some laugh-out-loud examples. They also discuss fun ideas for annual themed shows on rocks and teeth. Join in on the playful banter and mathematical madness that blends humor with clever problem-solving!
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Homemade Sea Salt Experiment
- Matt boiled and baked 274.9 g of seawater and extracted about 7.4 g of homemade sea salt.
- His first bake produced a floury texture, so he plans to slow-dry a middle fraction to get flaky crystals.
Pigeonhole Gives A Minimal Overlap
- If each person farts one second per day, 86,400 people guarantee an overlap by pigeonhole principle.
- Continuous coverage (no gap ever) needs many more people because you must cover every second simultaneously.
Compute Continuous Coverage Probabilities
- Use average fart frequency (15 times/day) and fart duration (~1s) to compute farting duty-cycle.
- Compute no-fart probability as (1 - duty)^(population) to find population for near-certain continuous farting.
