Request SSA gave Americans back 200 Million hours...
Just got an email with the following "In 2026, SSA gave Americans back 200 million hours of time they previously would have spent waiting for service, equivalent to putting 100,000 work years back into the economy."
I have always used 2000 hours per work year, so that part maths out.
However, Google says there are about 50,000 SSA employees and only half of those are customer facing.
It is really reasonable that SSA "improvements" saved 4 hours of customer waiting time per hour worked by SSA staff?
Were every one of the 70-80 million customers really waiting for more then 2 hours each to get 30 minutes of CSR time? And now they don't wait at all?
Or did 20 million customers previously wait an entire day at their local SSA office?
I'm not buying it. I just turned 62 and I think I spent maybe an hour with the online forms, never talking to a person. I later was contacted saying they needed to make an phone appointment to verify my identity. (<5 minutes) On the day of the appointment, the person said "Everything looks good. Not sure why we are talking." (<10 minutes) All of my time spent was productive, negligible amounts of waiting. The most time consuming was reading through everything to make sure I was doing the right things.
P.S. And we are only 80% through 2026, so the numbers should be even higher!
https://redd.it/1xjy9k6
@TheyDidTheMath
Just got an email with the following "In 2026, SSA gave Americans back 200 million hours of time they previously would have spent waiting for service, equivalent to putting 100,000 work years back into the economy."
I have always used 2000 hours per work year, so that part maths out.
However, Google says there are about 50,000 SSA employees and only half of those are customer facing.
It is really reasonable that SSA "improvements" saved 4 hours of customer waiting time per hour worked by SSA staff?
Were every one of the 70-80 million customers really waiting for more then 2 hours each to get 30 minutes of CSR time? And now they don't wait at all?
Or did 20 million customers previously wait an entire day at their local SSA office?
I'm not buying it. I just turned 62 and I think I spent maybe an hour with the online forms, never talking to a person. I later was contacted saying they needed to make an phone appointment to verify my identity. (<5 minutes) On the day of the appointment, the person said "Everything looks good. Not sure why we are talking." (<10 minutes) All of my time spent was productive, negligible amounts of waiting. The most time consuming was reading through everything to make sure I was doing the right things.
P.S. And we are only 80% through 2026, so the numbers should be even higher!
https://redd.it/1xjy9k6
@TheyDidTheMath
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Request How Much Money And Resources Would It Take To Make A Cooling System Based On Renewable Sources like Solar, Wind Or Waves To Cool The Data Centres?
Instead of water they use a lot of centralized AC units and rely totally on renewable energy sources.
https://redd.it/1xk1dlz
@TheyDidTheMath
Instead of water they use a lot of centralized AC units and rely totally on renewable energy sources.
https://redd.it/1xk1dlz
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Request $6.3B in crypto was stolen and transferred in 20 minutes. How long would it take to transport that much real cash?
Let’s say there’s a bank that has $6.3B in cash. How long would it take to move that much money to another somewhat distant location and what’s the most efficient way to transport it? An important caveat is that the movement can’t be noticed and the destination can’t located for a long time. Some examples:
\- garbage trucks move the money to a warehouse but there can’t be so many garbage trucks that it raises suspicion.
\- drones fly the money to a waiting ship.
The possible solutions really depend on the weight of the money, the number of bags/carts/palettes, the number of vehicles needed, etc.
I assume that wiring that amount would be easily traceable and probably reversible, that’s why it has to be cash. And it can’t be valuable artwork since selling them will be very difficult. Gold or other valuable materials are possibilities, as long as they can be easily sold. Basically somewhat equivalent of this crypto heist.
https://redd.it/1xk3w0v
@TheyDidTheMath
Let’s say there’s a bank that has $6.3B in cash. How long would it take to move that much money to another somewhat distant location and what’s the most efficient way to transport it? An important caveat is that the movement can’t be noticed and the destination can’t located for a long time. Some examples:
\- garbage trucks move the money to a warehouse but there can’t be so many garbage trucks that it raises suspicion.
\- drones fly the money to a waiting ship.
The possible solutions really depend on the weight of the money, the number of bags/carts/palettes, the number of vehicles needed, etc.
I assume that wiring that amount would be easily traceable and probably reversible, that’s why it has to be cash. And it can’t be valuable artwork since selling them will be very difficult. Gold or other valuable materials are possibilities, as long as they can be easily sold. Basically somewhat equivalent of this crypto heist.
https://redd.it/1xk3w0v
@TheyDidTheMath
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[REQUEST] 152.07 miles / 920 laps How big is this roundabout actually?
https://redd.it/1xk3u2l
@TheyDidTheMath
https://redd.it/1xk3u2l
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From the theydidthemath community on Reddit: [REQUEST] 152.07 miles / 920 laps How big is this roundabout actually?
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Request In John Carpenter’s The Thing, how long would it actually take the Thing to take over the world if just one specimin reached civilisation?
Afer the first attack, one of the characters uses a computer programme to estimate how long it would take for an entity to take over the entire world if it reached civilisation. The estimate given is 27,000 hours, but the calculation isn’t given
For those who don’t know, the Thing attacks living creatures, absorbs them, and then replicates them exactly so that nobody could tell the difference between them and the original - including humans with associated memories, intelligence, speech patterns, etc.
From the initial attack, it seems that it can replicate several creatures at once - it attacks the base’s dogs, of which there are nine. So had it not been interrupted, it would have gone from one organism to ten in one attack
Judging by what we see, it seems like it takes around 15 minutes to go from initial attack to indistinguishable duplicate. If it’s interrupted during the process it’s vulnerable, so it waits to get victims alone and where they’re unlikely to be interrupted
How long it would take to get people alone will have to be estimated, but I think there are assumptions which can be made - such as that it might again start with animals, and that maybe more vulnerable victims like children could be attacked in groups rather than one-on-one
For the sake of this question, assume that the John Carpenter film is the only media in existence. Also assume that only one entity made it back to the mainland, and that the knowledge gained throughout the film (like the blood-drawing test) is lost
I think it’s also wise to assume that the Thing would try to remain hidden throughout as much of the process as possible. So if, say, only 20% of the global population remains human, we should assume that those 20% have no idea that the other 80% are not human, rather than that they’re all hunkered down with flamethrowers
The global population in 1982 was around 4.6b
Given the exponential nature of its ability to attack, 27,000 hours (37 months or a little over three years) seemed maybe too slow
Of course, there will be huge variation depending on exactly what assumptions are made, but I thought there might be people here who enjoyed the process. I’d be interested in both answers which start from scratch with assumptions and come to their own conclusions and answers which work backwards from 27,000 and see what assumptions would have to be made for it to be true
https://redd.it/1xk72ep
@TheyDidTheMath
Afer the first attack, one of the characters uses a computer programme to estimate how long it would take for an entity to take over the entire world if it reached civilisation. The estimate given is 27,000 hours, but the calculation isn’t given
For those who don’t know, the Thing attacks living creatures, absorbs them, and then replicates them exactly so that nobody could tell the difference between them and the original - including humans with associated memories, intelligence, speech patterns, etc.
From the initial attack, it seems that it can replicate several creatures at once - it attacks the base’s dogs, of which there are nine. So had it not been interrupted, it would have gone from one organism to ten in one attack
Judging by what we see, it seems like it takes around 15 minutes to go from initial attack to indistinguishable duplicate. If it’s interrupted during the process it’s vulnerable, so it waits to get victims alone and where they’re unlikely to be interrupted
How long it would take to get people alone will have to be estimated, but I think there are assumptions which can be made - such as that it might again start with animals, and that maybe more vulnerable victims like children could be attacked in groups rather than one-on-one
For the sake of this question, assume that the John Carpenter film is the only media in existence. Also assume that only one entity made it back to the mainland, and that the knowledge gained throughout the film (like the blood-drawing test) is lost
I think it’s also wise to assume that the Thing would try to remain hidden throughout as much of the process as possible. So if, say, only 20% of the global population remains human, we should assume that those 20% have no idea that the other 80% are not human, rather than that they’re all hunkered down with flamethrowers
The global population in 1982 was around 4.6b
Given the exponential nature of its ability to attack, 27,000 hours (37 months or a little over three years) seemed maybe too slow
Of course, there will be huge variation depending on exactly what assumptions are made, but I thought there might be people here who enjoyed the process. I’d be interested in both answers which start from scratch with assumptions and come to their own conclusions and answers which work backwards from 27,000 and see what assumptions would have to be made for it to be true
https://redd.it/1xk72ep
@TheyDidTheMath
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[Request] How fast is this Hot Wheels car actually moving at its fastest point?
https://redd.it/1xk8zrm
@TheyDidTheMath
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@TheyDidTheMath
Request Indestructible box completely filled with water is slowly brought to 0K. What happens when it tries to freeze but has no room to expand
https://redd.it/1xk0cmp
@TheyDidTheMath
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Request Can a squirrel survive a fall from the Empire State Building?
https://redd.it/1xkcg6q
@TheyDidTheMath
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[Request] How fast would Homer had to have been so that Lenny and everyone else experienced time that much faster than Homer?
https://redd.it/1xkdqmu
@TheyDidTheMath
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@TheyDidTheMath
request How many zeros to solve chess
I assume it’s theoretically possible to solve chess, but how many possible moves would you actually have to account for to solve chess? How do you even set that equation up?
https://redd.it/1xkebza
@TheyDidTheMath
I assume it’s theoretically possible to solve chess, but how many possible moves would you actually have to account for to solve chess? How do you even set that equation up?
https://redd.it/1xkebza
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Meta Have the posts on this sub become really non-mathy?
For me and I assume most people here, the appeal of this subreddit was/is to see people do needlessly complex and pedantic mathematical calculations on topics that don't require them. However I've been feeling like more often than not, the posts on here are more like interesting trivia than unnecessary maths.
For example, here are the currently weekly top posts.
1. More a physics trivia question, and the top comment is physics trivia with no maths. But at least the post itself has things that are calculable, and there are other comments which include maths.
2. Not even remotely any attempt at being maths related
3. Much too broad and too many unstated assumptions for it to be a satisfying question to 'solve', but at least it fits the spirit.
4. Extremely obvious answer, no maths required, clearly posted for the image itself. Comments are biology trivia, as this is all that the problem can be.
5. Good post
6. Clearly not maths. Definitely not interesting maths.
7. Clearly unsolvable problem, where the difficulty is in semantics rather than maths.
8. Obvious answer (conditions are contradicting), no maths required.
9. A bit too simple to be satisfying, but at least there's maths.
10. Not only a physics problem with no numbers, but one that exists only in fantasy so no answer can be given.
So, out of 10 of the top posts last week, 1 was theydidthemath, 2 at least was a maths problem, 1 was a maths problem if you stretched it to be, and 6 were completely irrelevant.
Is this a good state for the sub to be in?
https://redd.it/1xkj125
@TheyDidTheMath
For me and I assume most people here, the appeal of this subreddit was/is to see people do needlessly complex and pedantic mathematical calculations on topics that don't require them. However I've been feeling like more often than not, the posts on here are more like interesting trivia than unnecessary maths.
For example, here are the currently weekly top posts.
1. More a physics trivia question, and the top comment is physics trivia with no maths. But at least the post itself has things that are calculable, and there are other comments which include maths.
2. Not even remotely any attempt at being maths related
3. Much too broad and too many unstated assumptions for it to be a satisfying question to 'solve', but at least it fits the spirit.
4. Extremely obvious answer, no maths required, clearly posted for the image itself. Comments are biology trivia, as this is all that the problem can be.
5. Good post
6. Clearly not maths. Definitely not interesting maths.
7. Clearly unsolvable problem, where the difficulty is in semantics rather than maths.
8. Obvious answer (conditions are contradicting), no maths required.
9. A bit too simple to be satisfying, but at least there's maths.
10. Not only a physics problem with no numbers, but one that exists only in fantasy so no answer can be given.
So, out of 10 of the top posts last week, 1 was theydidthemath, 2 at least was a maths problem, 1 was a maths problem if you stretched it to be, and 6 were completely irrelevant.
Is this a good state for the sub to be in?
https://redd.it/1xkj125
@TheyDidTheMath
