Thursday, October 23, 2014

Bilbo is a Quant Hobbit Because He Solves Riddles

I don't normally fuss over details. Take my approach to hanging pictures, for example. If it looks about center, then it's probably center. I'll just go ahead and hammer a nail in, because I don't like to waste time measuring. Likewise, years ago, I noticed that my front tire of an old bike seemed a little askew. So I just grabbed a hammer and banged on it until it stopped making that sssshusssssshing sound against my brake pads when I pedaled. Or take the time I decided not to carefully read the recipe on a box of brownies. I saw a word that started with V and thought, "huh, that's weird, vinegar, whatever." Turns out it was for vegetable oil.

What I can't miss the details on, however, is my quantitative methods class. And there is some kind of strange satisfaction I get from concentrating on little greek letters to solve equations. And looking at tables, and neatly penciling in how I computed the problem. And drawing graphs and bell curves. I love it. I have graph paper. There are some things I do fuss over, and I feel transported sometimes when I do my statistics homework. It's like a riddle, and I piece together the clues to answer the question. I bet if Bilbo Baggins had to write a dissertation, it would be a quantitative one.

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