Assignment 11: Theodore

    Hello, Clifton. I don’t know you well. We don’t move in the same circles. You took Chinese and play music (I’m not even sure which instrument); I take French and belong to the Math Club. But I can form educated guesses about your personality. Here’s a hypothetical situation showing how I think you think.

    Imagine that each of us owned a herd of sheep in a small forest. Each day, the sheep must leave the forest to graze on the plains. Unfortunately, hungry wolves stalk the prairie (but they abhor trees). What is the best method to ensure the survival of our flocks?

This problem reminds me of a math puzzle, so I would approach it this way: Send a few sheep onto the northern prairie to distract the wolves, then herd the rest of the flock onto the wolf-free southern plains. Depending on the number of sleep and wolves, this solution requires some optimization, maybe involving calculus.

    However, you would tackle this problem differently. Since the wolves don’t enter the forest, the sheep should never leave it. Perhaps you would seek a biological solution: breeding the sheep to eat tree leaves. After decades of this scenario, my sheep would use calculators; yours would become giraffes.

    Since we think differently, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to work together on some future project.