At the MITSFS and the SIPB, in the late 70's, we were already using "Chinese Remainder Theorem" to refer to exactly this incommensurability between the number of Peking ravioli and the number of diners. On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 5:22 PM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
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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