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<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">A good friend of mine
was CEO of a high-tech company, the kind that recruited grads
from Harvard, MIT, etc. He complained to me that the young
recruits tended not to bother to guesstimate results, which led
them to believe output from a computer, even if the result was
obviously wrong to anyone who had bothered to guesstimate.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">As a math tutor, I run
into this all the time, and I figure it's good to learn good
habits early. I find that most kids "learn" math as a
specialized set of incantations, completely separate from normal
intelligence and reasoning. These kids calculate the amount of
fence needed for a rabbit pen (a favorite kind of problem in
math books) in the thousands of feet or the thousandths of a
foot, reading confidently from their calculators. I say
something like, "Neither you nor I care about this rabbit pen.
But imagine if you did, if this were your rabbit pen and you
were buying the fence. What would you think about your answer?"
Then we start talking about guesstimation as a tool for checking
reasonableness.</font></p>
<p>-- <br>
</p>
<p style="font-family: Times, serif">
Jon "The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters" Dreyer<br>
<a href="http://www.passionatelycurious.com">Math Tutor/Computer
Science Tutor</a><br>
<a href="http://music.jondreyer.com">Jon Dreyer Music</a>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/23/23 9:33 AM, George Starkschall
via LCTG wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAKt-B6F7rUKU2KudLRk-5udBiHKW-QUbTeyde=++3j53M4BJuQ@mail.gmail.com">
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<div>The problem you have posed is a variation of the classic
"Fermi problem," which asked one to estimate the number of piano
tuners in Chicago.</div>
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<div>Let me recommend to you the book <i>Guesstimation</i>, which
gives you suggestions for solving this type of problem when you
don't know anything. You can get the book from Amazon at</div>
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<div><a
href="https://www.amazon.com/Guesstimation-Solving-Worlds-Problems-Cocktail/dp/0691129495/ref=sr_1_1?crid=JX3NWHR6HDT0&keywords=guesstimation+book&qid=1695475669&sprefix=guesstimati%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1"
moz-do-not-send="true">Amazon.com: Guesstimation: Solving the
World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin:
9780691129495: Weinstein, Lawrence, Adam, John A.: Books</a><br>
</div>
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<div>I used to teach first-year graduate students in a medical
physics program this material since most of them had never seen
this type of problem before. They should have learned how to
guesstimate much earlier than grad school.</div>
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