380 Frequently Asked Questions In Quantitative Finance
pinch of tobacco...(hahaha)...and you shove it up
your nose...(hahaha)...and it makes you sneeze?...
(hahaha)...Yeh, I imagine it would, Walt! Hey, Gold-
enrod seems to do it pretty well over here! It has other
uses though, huh?...you can chew it!...Or put it in a
pipe!...or you can shred it up...and put it in a piece
of paper...(hahaha)...and roll it up...(hahaha)...
don’t tell me, Walt, don’t tell me...(ha ha ha)...you
stick it in your ear, right? (ha ha ha)...Oh!...between
your lips!...Then what do you do, Walt?...(ha ha ha)...
you set fire to it!...(ha ha ha) Then what do you do,
Walt?...(hahaha)...You inhale the smoke, huh!...
(hahaha)Youknow,Walt...it seems you can stand
in front of your own fireplace and have the same thing
going for you!’’)
Gender ratio
A country is preparing for a possible future war. The
country’s tradition is to send only males into battle
and so they want to increase the proportion of males
to females in the population through regulating births.
A law is passed that requires every married couple to
have children and they must continue to have children
until they have a male.
What effect do you expect this law to have on the
makeup of the population?
(Thanks to Wilbur.)
Solution
A bit of a trick question, this, and open to plenty of
interesting discussion.
The obvious answer is that there is no effect on the
gender ratio. However, this would only be true under
