On March 6, I predicted that the worldwide total number of confirmed cases would reach 1 million by March 28. The prediction used a doubling number of four days. Today is April 2 and the total number of confirmed cases reached 1 million. So my prediction was off by five […]
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In my post of Doubling Numbers – part 3 I predicted one million cases worldwide on March 28, 2020 — today. Well, I was wrong — there are 660,000 confirmed cases and 30K dead. That prediction was made on March 7, twenty one days ago when there were 21K cases. […]
I downloaded the data from the New York Times for confirmed cases covid19 state data from March 1 thru March 26, 2020. Then I plotted this in Maxima. (%i14) plot2d([discrete,NYlog],[title,"NY confirmed cases"], [xlabel,"March 2020 date"],[ylabel,"log souls"], [png_file,"nylog.png"]) (%o14) [/home/nicks/maxout.gnuplot, /home/nicks/nylog.png] (%o14) loveny.mac From eyeballing the graph, one can see that […]
After a month of indecision, action has come. By restricting peoples’ movement and association, transmission of the virus can be delayed, or stopped. Makes sense in theory — the rapid growth of cases will peak and then subside. That’s the idea. But what does that mean practically? From a numerical […]
When thinking about the new reality of the COVID19 virus, a lot of things roll through my brain. I think about the quote that Jeff Goldblum says in Jurassic park about the dinosaurs — “Life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, crashes through barriers, […]
In my post on February 10 I predicted that there would be a million cases of coronavirus by March 1. Today, March 6, I am looking at the number of cases outside China reported as 2400 on February 24 and 1200 on February 20. One can use these values to […]
In my post on February 10 I predicted that there would be a million cases of coronavirus by March 1. It was a simplistic back-of-the-envelope calculation. On the same day, Donald Trump made the prediction, “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot […]
As anyone who has played backgammon, players can double the value of the game through the use of the doubling cube, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64. Doubling can be used in many contexts. It can be an important tool in understanding exponential processes. The use of the exponential […]