For me it is the fact that our blood contains iron. I earlier used to believe the word stood for some ‘organic element’ since I couldn’t accept we had metal flowing through our supposed carbon-based bodies, till I realized that is where the taste and smell of blood comes from.

  • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
    602·
    10 months ago

    Queuing theory can have some fun surprises.

    Suppose a small bank has only one teller. Customers take an average of 10 minutes to serve and they arrive at the rate of 5.8 per hour. With only one teller, customers will have to wait nearly five hours on average before they are served. If you add a second teller the average wait becomes 3 minutes.

    • rahmad@lemmy.ml
      19·
      10 months ago

      Can you elaborate on the math here? (I believe you, I just want to understand the simulation parameters better).

        • rahmad@lemmy.ml
          6·
          10 months ago

          Thanks! This article really clears up a lot of the details that help the simulation make sense.

      • AyyLMAO@lemmy.ml
        152·
        10 months ago

        The customers are arriving slightly faster than they can be processed, so the queue grows. 5.8/hr < 6x10/hr. There does seem to be a missing parameter to arrive at the specific conclusion of a 5 hour wait, though, such as the length of time the queue is open to additional customers during the business day.

        edit: As pointed out, I misread and was mistaken. The customers are served slightly faster, so it only comes down to the missing info of arrival time.

        • rahmad@lemmy.ml
          6·
          10 months ago

          Also, in this simulation are the customers arriving in equally spaced intervals or is random arrival time within the bounds assumed?

          • Fashtas@aussie.zone
            4·
            10 months ago

            In the linked article they are arriving randomly. It takes 10 minutes per customer and they arrive every 10.3 minutes.

        • SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net
          4·
          10 months ago

          Aren’t they arriving slightly slower than can be served, according to these numbers:

          If one customer takes 10 minutes to serve, you can serve 6 customers in an hour

          and you get 5.8 customers every hour, which is less than 6

          So you serve 6 customers, meaning you have a leftover capacity of 0.2 per hour or 1 extra customer every 5 hours

          Maybe the numbers are switched over or I am misunderstanding something

          Edit: nevermind, read the link in the thread and realised I treated the average as the actual serving time and I’m guessing that’s what makes it non intuitive. I’m still not entirely clear on how it works.

          • AyyLMAO@lemmy.ml
            2·
            10 months ago

            Lol yes, you’re absolutely right. It comes down to the serving time. My brain was a bit frazzled I guess.

          • AyyLMAO@lemmy.ml
            1·
            10 months ago

            Yeah I got my wires crossed and mixed up the numbers. According to the linked actual article it comes down to missing info related to arrival time.

      • olafurp@lemmy.world
        22·
        10 months ago

        Intuitive way to see why is that 6.1 customers per hour would mean infinite waiting time (when it reaches a steady state)