One day, back in the late 1980s, I went out for dim sum in San Francisco with geometer Dan Freed and two other mathematicians. All the portions were for three or six people: none were for four. I groused "I guess there's some corollary of Murphy's Law that says that when a bunch of people go out for dim sum, the number of portions is never divisible by the number of diners." Dan instantly responded "Sure there is; it's called the Chinese Remainder Theorem." Jim On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 4:21 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
The excess male Chinese are called "Chinese Remainders", and the fact that this leads to war is called the "Chinese Remainder Theorem". ;-)
At 12:56 PM 11/6/2015, Henry Baker wrote:
"It's estimated that by 2020, China will have 24 million more men than women of marriageable age on the mainland"
http://english.cri.cn/7146/2013/02/26/2702s750680.htm
Of course, artificially high sex ratios like this in human history are always resolved the same way: war. The young men kill one other until the problem has resolved itself.
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