I think I need a hobby.
The following questions popped into my head (nearly fully formed) during dinner the other day. What’s more amazing is that I brought up these thoughts and my family actually considered them for a few minutes. We’re just your average Geek Family[sup]TM[/sup]
Given any two randomly selected food/drink items,
[ul][li]what is the probability that those two items have ever been combined by someone, somewhere in the world?[/li][li]what is the probability that it is considered (by at least one culture in the world) normal to combine those two items?[/li][li]what is the (average) percentage of the people in the world that would enjoy eating a combination of those two foods?[/ul][/li]
For example, let’s say we had a list of all food and drink items in the world and we selected (randomly) a french fry and a chocolate milk shake. This satisfies the first condition (I did it all the time when I was young and immature). AFAIK, this is not considered normal anywhere, so it doesn’t satisfy the second. As for the third one, I think if people gave it a try, they’d like it, so I’d say the percentage is around 75 or 80. But the questions aren’t about those two choices, they’re about all the possible choices you could make, and what fraction of those choices would satisfy the conditions. Anyone know how you could even begin to solve these? If not, I would love to hear your Wow, I Must Be A Geek story.