On 26 January 1924, Charles Jewtraw won the first gold medal in the first winter Olympics.
Jewtraw, an American from Lake Placid (pictured above in photo posted by CNN), won the 500 meter short track speed skating race, in 44.0 seconds.
Chamonix, a French town in the shadow of Mont Blanc, hosted the 1924 Olympics. At the time, they were billed the Semaine internationale des sports d’hiver, acknowledged subsequently as the first Winter Olympics.
How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?
Physicist Enrico Fermi put that question to graduate students. (Decades later, my professor asked the same question to our basic astrophysics class, then explained its pedigree.)
It’s a great question. To answer it, you have to estimate (among other things) the number of households that have a piano and the frequency with which they tune it. If you’re numerically nimble, you can come within an order of magnitude of the factually correct answer.
Variants of this problem exist:
These are also good tests of numeracy, although they don’t ask the respondent to juggle as many hypotheticals as Fermi’s piano tuner problem.
An urban legend has grown around these puzzles. According to the legend, top employers now routinely ask these questions at interviews. A few years ago, the company most often mentioned was Google; today, it has become Goldman Sachs. Businesses have sprouted to train interviewees to prepare for these kinds of questions.
This urban legend might have some basis in fact: the questions are a good test of numeracy, or at least of an eagerness to approach problems expressed in numbers. Basing hiring decisions on how an interviewee tackles these questions makes more sense than choosing new hires on appearance, including poise during more traditional interview questions.
This urban legend troubles me for what it signals about candidates. I can’t say often or emphatically enough how disappointed I am at candidates’ willingness –even eagerness– to put their résumé in a pile, to get on a long interview line, and to hope that (somehow) they’ll be asked to dance at the ball.
What an illustration of poor numeracy skills! What’s the likelihood that you’ll be selected from a big pool? “Having” the right answer or having been coached at answering are of little hope: all of the semi-finalists at beauty contests (Miss France, Miss America) are attractive, but most go home empty-handed.
A recent opinion poll showed that French people are pessimistic. Indeed,the French were the most pessimistic of the 53 countries that BVA polled. Its poll centered on the economic outlook for 2011, and most French respondents expect the economic climate to worsen and employment levels to fall.
Why such pessimism? How can it be squared with other polls that show the French to enjoy superior quality of life and widespread material comfort?
For years, I’ve heard French people –especially outwardly successful people– voice exaggerated caution about future prospects, along the lines of: we’ll be lucky to make it through the winter. After having heard these musings repeatedly and consistently over the years, I discount the pessimism expressed in an opinion poll; or, more exactly, suspect that pessimism points towards a few, distinctly French social tropes or memes.
First among these is a social prohibition against bragging. No one likes a show-off. Accomplishment or success may be prized or cherished, but its holder commits a gaffe if he publicly comments on it. Partly this prohibition expresses modesty, but it is also a prophylactic against envy: as Tocqueville observed, in today’s democratic society, giving voice to good fortune can spark resentment among one’s fellows.
There also seems to be a French folkway, reminiscent of the Icarus story, where the act of foreseeing or expecting great things in the future somehow hobbles or handicaps the doer. Until recently –in living memory– France was an agrarian society, where the land’s yield remained uncertain until harvest. Drought or flood or a heat spell or a cold snap could shatter clever plans, as will be familiar to readers of Pagnol’s Jean de Florette.
Finally, an expression of pessimism also signals anxiety about loss. As Rousseau reasoned, fear off loss can outweigh the pleasure of possession. What was true in France more than 200 years ago remains pertinent today. To some extent, French respondents may express pessimism precisely because they have much to lose.
couverture du magazine Ikea Family Live (hiver 2010)
“Et si vous fixiez vos propres règles?”
Voici la question posée en couverture de Ikea Family Live magazine, publication du magasin suédois éponyme destinée surtout aux consommateurs parents de jeunes enfants en quête d’”idées et inspiration pour la maison”.
Il s’agit d’une question ouverte, un brin provocante tout en gardant le ton bon enfant du magazine et du magasin.
C’est aussi une réponse à l’affirmation de la RATP à bord des bus parisiens : “Si chacun fait ses propres règles, tout se dérègle.”
Il s’agit, pour la RATP, d’un énoncé fermé, vaguement ménaçant, qui n’admet pas de discussion. Bizarrement, c’est aussi un mécanisme à disculper la RATP de dysfonctionnements : l’origine de dérèglements se trouverait auprès des usagers, intempestivement innovateurs.
The Paris transit authority, the RATP, wants to promote civility through a communications campaign aboard its buses.
In a previous post, I joked about the RATP’s seeming inability to see the world through the eyes of its customers, who saw an over-crowded train where the RATP saw an ordinary train.
The RATP’s new campaign is unabashedly philosophical and frankly reactionary, with a tag line that speaks out against making up or living by your own rules.
City buses feature illustrations of this principle. I’d have expected the illustrations to stress the importance of paying when you ride the bus, speaking politely with the driver, abstaining from playing music at loud volumes, or leaving your seat to an infirm passenger.
I was mistaken: the RATP again represents its passengers as problems. In this case, it lashes out against … babies.
The RATP has a point: strollers take up space and end up making a bus crowded.
But the RATP fails at making this point.
Its visuals instead show how babies make life difficult for a working man.
The image that introduced this post shocked me. The four babies are all doing fine, enjoying the bus ride or napping. Their companions –to my eyes, a mother, a father, and a grandmother– are smiling. Everyone is getting on and getting along fine. Then a malcontent enters the scene: a working man. He’s shown to be bothered and inconvenienced.
Bizarrely, the RATP shines its spotlight on and casts its sympathies with this one, solitary traveler; it seems blind to the fact that a bus ride is a happy experience for seven other travelers. The RATP’s tag line reads roughly as: “with strollers, don’t push it”. And the RATP’s solution –strollers subsequent to the second stroller must be folded– doesn’t make life any easier for its youngest passengers or their companions.