I can’t decide between:
-
surely turkeys need their beauty sleep and won’t produce eggs at night (but what about different timezones :eek: )
-
this question is a real turkey :smack:
10,000::100 : 1::x
10,000x = 100
x=100/10,000
x = .01
Seems like pretty simple algebra to me.
What’s “it” in the above sentence? That’s the problem.
I read “it” as “one of the turkeys.” Other people read “it” as “the entire population of the turkeys.”
In any case, a farmer who has 100 turkeys probably has them all in the same freakin’ time zone, and turkeys don’t spread their egglaying throughout the day. I’m guessing most egglaying happens within a small window of time, especially in an artificial environment. 1 day seems the most reasonable answer to me.
Especially for a problem written by this teacher. I gotta say I’m not impressed by the question’s coda, either.
Daniel
Chefguy, you were asking
but when you did
You got the ratios backwards. 10,000::100 means 10,000 eggs for every 100 days, while 1::x means 1 day for every x eggs (assuming you’re interested in one day, and not one egg), the reverse of the former.
If you want to know how many eggs are laid in one day, you would have
10,000::100 : x::1
and so x=100.
Seems like everyone is overthinking this a bit. The answer given the limited information is either 1 day or 0.01 day (or 14.4 minutes).
It is quite possible you could get an egg in 1 second if a turkey is ready to lay whenever you decide to start your stopwatch. Or it might take two weeks since turkeys lay eggs in clutches of up to 18 eggs (I was checking to see if this was a trick question like the one about a Rooster laying an egg [rooster being a male chicken doesn’t lay eggs] and came across that tidbit…female turkey is a hen and a male is a tom but generically “turkey” seems to cover both). As such you might get nothing for two weeks and then the whole lot could unload on you. I have no clue if a hen can get pregnant right away again…for all I know she can only do that once a year.
In the end it is a simple statistical average that says nothing about what you can count on in the very short term but overall you can see a trend develop that you can count on 10,000 eggs every 100 days which when averaged out gets you your answer of 1 egg every 14.4 minutes even though that may bear no resemblance to reality.
The important, real life lesson, is that you can make a baby in one months by getting nine women pregnant.
I also agree that the question could be a bit more clearly worded. My 3rd grade daughter missed a problem on her homework last week that had her in tears. The question used a matrix of numbers, with the odd and even numbers highlighted differently, and asked to “start at two, skip count for 12”. The answer my daughter put was 24 ( 2 x 12 = 24) but the teacher was looking for 26 (start at 2, count by twos for 12 counts). The main issue I have with that problem as worded is that it’s practically worthless in terms of real life associations. “Skip counting” seems like a mechanism to teach kids multiples, but it gives the false impression that 2 x 12 = 26. So then what’s the point?
While we’re talking turkey and on the subject of eggs, I just thought I’d mention something that surprised the hell out of me when I first read it. Turkeys can reproduce without the benefit of sex: Parthenogenesis.
ShibbOleth, you’re daughter was very clever for just multiplying the times of skips by the amount (2), but she forgot that she started at 2. On a problem like this, you need to factor in the starting point. (number of skips * length of skip) + starting point = end.
An answer of 24 is right if she started at zero. Since the problem stated “start at 2”, the formula is (2 x 12) + 2 = 26.
This is a perfect example of why I love this board soooo much. 
Thank to all! The answer is due tommorrow. I’ll have her use the formula where she will (hopefully) come up with 1/100 of a day or .01 days. I’ll be back here Tuesday to let you know it turned out.
Honey
It’s still ambiguous. “Start at 2” might mean the first number to be counted is 2, and it might mean the next number is the first one. In fact, notice how subtle the difference is between “Start at 2 and skip count 12 numbers” and “starting at 2, skip count 12 numbers.” Given the latter, I would definitely say 2 is the first number to be counted, and it’s not unreasonable to interpret those two instructions identically.
Er…not to get all wrapped up in an argument, but no, that’s not correct. Question is how many days, not how many eggs: 10,000 eggs in 100 days : 1 egg in how many days (x). I’ll stand by my logic.
That’s a good thing, because most turkeys I know only get the benefit of sex if they can pay for it. 
Well we cant be sure the turkeys will lay an egg within the .01 day time frame and we cant be sure they will lay all 100 within the first day. (there could be slacker/ procrastinating turkeys putting off the job till later).
If conditions are bad (wild fox gets in the pen) they may not lay at all for a day or so till they calm down.
I’d say the answer was;
most likely < 1 day
very probably within 2 days
Almost certainly within 3 days
Or something like;
None, farmer Brown can’t lay eggs.
To quote your earlier post:
You were claiming .01 eggs are laid in one day, which is wrong.
Chefguy, this was just addressed by galt, but I just want to try and be clear on where the confusion came from.
The OP asked
The correct answer to this is .01 days (assuming the turkeys lay eggs at a constant rate).
However, then you asked
This is a different question, and it is this question I was answering when I gave the answer of 100 eggs.
But the two questions are inverses of each other. .01 days per egg, or 100 eggs per day, whichever–they say the same thing, but the former addresses the question posed in the OP, while the latter addresses your question.
Have they been studying rounding off?
If the teacher has been taking them through rounding off numbers, and the answer to the question is to be in integral numbers of days, then the answer is zero days.
Because the first egg will happen in a time interval that’s a lot closer to zero days than to one day.
Update
My daughter worked through the problem and handed the answer in on Friday. She did not however, put her name on the paper :smack: and the teacher threw it away :mad: .
I have sent an e-mail to her teacher and am awaiting a reply. More later.
Ooh, I had teachers that would do that. So annoying. But, I didn’t forget to put my name on it very often.
I vote that the question was asked wrong. If the answer is supposed to be grade school simple, then the right question should have been…
How many days does is take a turkey to lay 1 egg?