Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

    > difference = aw' - aw
    >    = (aw * n + 90000000000)/(n+1) - aw * n = 1000000
Somehow aw turned into aw * n there, which sent your calculations wildly off. You want:

    n * aw + 90 * 10^9 = (n + 1) * (aw + 10^6)
    n * aw + 90 * 10^9 = n * aw + n * 10^6 + aw + 10^6
    90 * 10^9 - (10^6 + aw) = n * 10^6
    n = 89999 - aw / 10^6
i.e., almost 90000 people, no matter how wealthy the population of the bar is.


> no matter how wealthy the population of the bar is.

That doesn't sound right. What if the population of the bar is as wealthy as Gates? The average net worth should change if you add another value equals to all the previous ones. Am I reading something wrong?


What if the population of the bar is as wealthy as Gates?

My point is that you can't find 90000 people who are as wealthy as Gates. In fact, you can't find 90000 people whose average wealth comes anywhere close to Gates -- even the Forbes 400 average out at a paltry $6.7B, and you'd need to stock the bar with 83300 people with that level of wealth before Gates would fail to raise the average wealth by $1M.

I think the average wealth among the top 90000 people is around $100M, so you'd need to have around 89900 of them... plus or minus a few thousand depending on how the stock market is doing on any particular day.


Grr! Well, it's a good thing my job doesn't require doing algebra.

Thanks for pointing out the error.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: