I don’t want this to become a pattern but I was asked what the difference was

September 29, 2007 at 9:23 am | In Life in America | 4 Comments

An Australian toilet:

Never let it be said that I don’t give the audience what they want

September 28, 2007 at 1:19 am | In Life in America | 1 Comment

An American toilet:

The real reason I should read the questions I assign in college algebra

September 28, 2007 at 1:12 am | In Teaching | Leave a Comment

Question 41 of section 2.2: A manufacturer of fax machines finds that the cost (in dollars) generated by manufacturing x units per week is given by

C(x)=0.15x^2-39x+4500.

How many units should be manufactured to minimize the cost?

I find this model unrealistic to say the least.

Test Match All-rounders

September 28, 2007 at 1:03 am | In Cricket | 4 Comments

I was thinking the other day about what we mean by the best all rounder. Generally this means decide which players are all rounders then pick the one who you would prefer to have on your team. By this measure Garry Sobers is almost certain to be your pick. He averaged 57.78 with the bat and 34.03 with the ball, making him one of the greatest batsman of all time and a very useful bowler. But is he really the most all round cricketer? Probably not.

One popular metric for measuring all rounders is batting average – bowling average. This is shown for selected post WWII all-rounders below.

 

Batting Average

Bowling Average

Difference

Jacques Kallis

55.78

31.71

24.07

Garry Sobers

57.78

34.04

23.74

Imran Khan

37.69

22.81

14.88

Keith Miller

36.98

22.98

14.00

Tony Greig

40.44

32.21

8.23

Ian Botham

33.55

28.4

5.15

Andrew Flintoff

32.92

31.33

1.59

Kapil Dev

31.05

29.65

1.40

Richie Benaud

24.46

27.03

-2.57

This has the horrifying result of making Jacques Kallis the best all rounder. Also interesting is that there is no such thing as being a ‘true’ all rounder, one that could make the team as both batsman and bowler. In the modern Australian team, at least, you need to average over 40 with the bat as a batsman and under 30 with the ball as a bowler.

So the next thought is to measure how far away from being a true all rounder they are. So take the maximum(40-batting average,bowling average-30). The smaller this value the more complete an all rounder you are.

 

Batting Average

Bowling Average

Distance from true all-rounder

Jacques Kallis

55.78

31.71

1.71

Tony Greig

40.44

32.21

2.21

Imran Khan

37.69

22.81

2.31

Keith Miller

36.98

22.98

3.02

Garry Sobers

57.78

34.04

4.04

Ian Botham

33.55

28.4

6.45

Andrew Flintoff

32.92

31.33

7.08

Kapil Dev

31.05

29.65

8.95

Richie Benaud

24.46

27.03

15.54

Again Kallis is the best. Thankfully my bias against Kallis is backed up by numbers, his records against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are amazing and inflate his figures.

  Innings – Not Outs Runs Batting Average Runs Conceded Wickets Taken Bowling Average
Against All Comers 153 8430 55.10 6756 213 31.72
Zimbabwe 4 679 169.75 309 21 14.71
Bangladesh 0 214 infinity 95 7 13.57
All except Zimbabwe and Bangladesh 149 7537 50.58 6352 185 35.31

So, unless I can be bothered to remove games that Tony Greig or Imran Khan played against New Zealand or Sri Lanka (and looking at the stats this wouldn’t matter too much) we have been able to remove Jacques Kallis from the top of both lists.

So the best all-rounder is Garry Sobers and the most complete is Tony Greig(!).

A cross section of American life – in bullet point form!

September 24, 2007 at 3:47 am | In Life in America | 4 Comments
  • At bars you order the beers from waitstaff while you are sitting at your table. Then you pay at the end. This leaves me in constant fear of running out of money and not noticing.
  • Change management is difficult: $1 bills are needed for bus fairs (any higher notes are interpreted as $1 bills by the machine), buying water out of vending machines and tips. On the other hand they have pennies and no coins worth over 25c so I end up with large amounts of shrapnel.
  • A girl got murdered in her dorm room by her roommate. There are multiple sex offenders at large on the campus.
  • Some of my students call me Professor Leslie when they send me absurd emails with the reason they weren’t in class.
  • Baseball is on TV every day. College football is on TV from about 8 in the morning ’til midnight on Saturday, professional football is on Sunday for a slightly lesser period.
  • You can watch 3 simultaneous episodes of ‘Scrubs’ on TV.
  • The toilets are weird.
  • The lightswitches are upside down.
  • People are remarkably willing to listen to me talk about cricket.
  • Bob Saget hosts 1 v 100.
  • Students in my class are ‘rushing’ ’sororities’.
  • I have been convinced that the American version of ‘The Office’ is almost as good as the UK one.

This is the face of pure evil

September 24, 2007 at 3:28 am | In Life in America | Leave a Comment

I very much enjoy the descriptions of the sexual offenders around campus.

Obviously this is a serious issue, but the suspect being described as “pock” scarred is quite amusing. What next? Is he going to have an eyepatch or a hook or something?

sex offender

The suspect is described as a Hispanic male, mid to late 20s, approximately 5′7″ tall of average build with dark hair worn in a ponytail and a goatee. The suspect was wearing a blue baseball cap on backwards and a white or grey T-shirt. His face was described as “pock” scarred in the cheek area.

A questionnaire (with 2 sets of answers)

September 24, 2007 at 3:16 am | In Life in America, Uni | 1 Comment

Thanks to one of my students for asking the questions and to my dear friend Leesa for filling this out for me.

1) How did you like living in Australia? Do you miss your hometown?
A. Australia is fantastic, slightly less racist then here, and has cricket. You can justify spending a whole day in front of the TV drinking beer watching cricket; in fact not only is it justified, it is expected; cracking a beer open for the first ball of the day is the best feeling. Do I miss my home town? Yes. It has beer and kangaroos.
B. I think I liked it. I don’t have a real frame of reference though because firstly I do not know what it is to be truly happy; nor have I lived anywhere else till now. I could miss my hometown, but I don’t know why. Let’s just say: I remember it fondly.

2) What made you come over to Arizona?
A. I watched Revenge of the Nerds. Also, it would accept me as a student of an obscure area of mathematics that really has no future. Fermat’s Last Theorem has been solved: what more is there to do?
B. The university offered me a position; I doubt I would have come here if it didn’t. I guess a better question would be why did you apply to come to Arizona, or why did you choose this university over others. However I do not wish to do your job for you.

3) How did you like your college experience (undergrad)?
A. I used to go to a bar called the Red Room; it was a dive, but it gave us cheap beer. I also was in love with my supervisor, Victor. So not only was mathematics challenging it was sexually confusing.
B. It was the typical undergraduate experience; hence I can’t not reveal too much here for fear of my VISA being revoked.

4) What made you (what interested you to) go into your field of study?
A. Refer to the previous question. Victor, the love of my life.
B. I was exceptionally good at Mathematics. Furthermore I was informed that mathematics would get me girls. This turned out to be false.

5) What do you plan on doing with your degree?
A. I possibly will hang it on my wall; however history has suggested that it will sit in a plastic folder at the bottom of my drawer.
B. I’ll take it to the man who told me that mathematics would get me girls and demand a bride.

6) How do you like the University of Arizona?
A. I like it just fine. I particularly like it that most students take interest in my life and ask me to fill out questionnaires. Please, if anyone else has a questionnaire for me to fill out, let me know.
B. I like it, mainly because I haven’t been shot. If I were to be shot, I may not like it.

7) Do you plan on moving back to Australia?
A. I don’t know. If I can find a wife, or a Number theory lecturer who reminds me of Victor I may stay.
B. Well, unfortunately my qualifications obtained here will not be recognised in Australia. That is because they study maths, not math. I am not sure what the difference is, but I am reliably informed that being a specialist in one excludes professional practice in the other. So in answer to your question: maybe.

Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it.
A. No problem, I got a friend from Australia to fill it out for me.

The B Team

September 23, 2007 at 3:48 pm | In Alphabet teams, Cricket | Leave a Comment

The next installment in my list of all time test cricket teams with players whose names start with each letter of the alphabet: B.

Geoff Boycott (108 tests, 8114 runs @ 47.72)
Bill Brown (22 tests, 1592 runs @ 46.82)
Don Bradman (52 tests, 6996 runs @ 99.94)
Ken Barrington (82 tests, 6806 runs @ 58.67)
Allan Border (156 tests, 11174 runs @ 50.56)
Ian Botham (102 test, 5200 runs @ 33.54, 383 wickets @ 28.40)
Mark Boucher (wk) (102 test, 3844 runs @ 30.26, 392 dismissals)
Richie Benaud (c) (63 tests, 2201 runs @ 24.45, 248 wickets @ 27.03)
Shane Bond (16 tests, 138 runs @ 13.80, 74 wickets @ 22.10)
Ian Bishop (43 tests, 632 runs @ 12.15, 161 wickets @ 24.27)
Syd Barnes (27 tests, 242 runs @ 8.06, 189 wickets @ 16.43)
Notes:

  • Other players to consider: Eddie Barlow, David Boon, Colin Bland, Alec Bedser, Bishen Bedi, John Blackham. Also Billy Bates, Billy Barnes, Johnny Briggs and Colin Blythe all played pre WWI and had bowling averages under 20.
  • The middle order is spectacular, the openers are solid and they bat down to Benaud at 8. Expect some big scores.
  • Shane Bond has only played 16 tests due to injury and New Zealand not playing much test cricket these days. But his performance in all competitions justifies this selection.
  • If SF Barnes is as good as everybody that played with him says then this is a very strong team. If his style doesn’t translate to modern pitches then they may struggle to dismiss some of the stronger batting lineups.

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