The Mathematics of Travel

All right, in honor of Tian beginning a new and seriously involved relationship with multiplication this week, I pontificate upon the mathematics of travel here today. We are, collectively, scoring about a 40% on this test so far this weekend.

Problem Number 1
We'll start with an easy one. For how many days can one weak-bladdered four year old wear the same underwear and pants without reeking so horribly of urine that you must break down and unpack previously packed clean clothes?

Answer
One day. There is no other answer for this one, unless you are a chronic allergy sufferer. Then you may have answered, "Until my Claritin kicks in." Sorry if you got that one wrong. Maybe it wasn't as easy as I'd expected it would be.

Problem Number 2
How many ways can a mountain of school books and seven baskets of clean clothes be combined in order to fit into a given quantity of luggage (9 bags), without any one of those bags exceeding 50 pounds in weight?

Got the answer? Good. Now subtract out three of those shipping containers which the husband deems "inappropriate for air travel" and run quickly to a thrift store to see if they have some of those fancy rolly bags that will hold that additional 150 pounds. Now do it again the next day.

For extra credit, calculate the number of gallons of gasoline you burned running all over Gloucester County searching the thrift stores for cheap luggage to replace the "inappropriate shipping containers".

Answer
The only way to figure out this one is to drag out a bathroom scale and make your husband get on it, announce his weight, and then start piling bags into his arms, finally subtracting one number from another. The combinations are infinite, but I would estimate that we tried 768 combinations over the course of three days of packing.

And don't bother with calculating the gasoline. It gets too depressing.

Problem Number 3
If a family is housed for a night on the fourth floor of a hotel above an older, crabby gentleman, how many hours of jumping, skipping and pounding will the man tolerate before he comes upstairs, rattles the door, and expresses his dissatisfaction with the noise?

Answer
48 minutes.

Problem Number 4
All children need to be fed. However, some children need to be fed more often than others. Keeping this in mind, on average how long can you march three children throughout the Civil War sites in the City of Richmond, Virginia, before one of them complains about imminent starvation?

Answer
If you are a parent you will know this is a trick question. Their hunger level will directly correlate to how bored they are. Fortunately, the National Park system offers the Junior Ranger Program, which is exciting enough and offers enough incentive for completion that it staves off boredom. At the end of two hours of searching for solutions to questions, the kids are awarded with a plastic pin-on badge.

The answer to this one today was SEVEN HOURS!

Problem Number 5
If a family of five is passing through security, how many times will the husband have to run to the bathroom to empty water bottles? And how many forays into the bags will the mother have to make in order for all toiletries to be extracted from their four carry-ons?

Answer
The father will have to make four trips to the bathroom (since he is the only one who still has shoes on) and the mother will have to try three times to find all the toiletries. As an added bonus, the mother will also have to repack one of the carry-ons after the elder daughter dumps it all over the floor right in front of the metal detector. Extra credit for you if you got that bag dumping part.


Problem Number 6
Be careful with this last one as it is apparently very tricky.

If you receive an electronic voucher from the airline stating that your flight will depart Richmond International at 2018, what time would that be on a standard clock?

Hint: If you are tempted to answer, "6:18", like Tony did today, then you would be wrong. Calculate carefully because if you get it wrong you may have to spend many hours waiting at a largely empty flight gate.

Answer
Yes,that is right, the answer is 8:18 PM. We rolled into the airport at 3:15 expecting a very reasonable three hours during which we would check our bags, enjoy a leisurely stroll about the airport, and have a bite to eat. Instead we were greeted with barely contained snickers at the check-in counter and the observation, "You can certainly go ahead and take your time getting to the gate now, can't you?"

The desk crew then responded with a bit of pity by letting us check our bags in a little early and pointing us toward Applebee's. Now we are at the gate with our carry-ons open and spread throughout the entire area. United either hates us for the mess or loves us for the entertainment to be had from us.

How did you score? Not anticipating our mathematically-challenged brains' responses, I scored very poorly so congratulations if you know us well enough to have garnered a 70% or above.

We should be in Oman in 20 hours. Look for a new post next week (inshallah, as always!)