19 April 2021

Answer to the marbles in Brownian motion puzzle…

The easiest way to think about this problem is not to think of number of marbles in each color but the differences in number between colors. Let’s say “a”, “b” and “c” are the pairwise differences in colors. Their values are 10, 10 and 20 to begin with.

Let’s see what happens whenever there is a “hit”.
If the marbles are of same colors, of course no change in count happens – so a, b and c remain the same.
If the marbles are of different colors – then those two colors go down by 1 each and the third color goes up by 2. Which means the pairwise differences either remain the same (the two colors that hit) or they change by 3 (one color goes down by 1 and the resulting color goes up by 2).

So, the first concept to realize is that a, b and c always change in steps of 0 or steps of 3. There are no other step changes they can have.

Now, let’s say what if the marbles actually did become all of one color. What as the step right before it? We would have had to have all marbles of the same final color excepting two – one each of the other two colors. Thus if finally everything is green, in the penultimate step, there has to be one red, one blue and rest green. The red hits the blue to become green.

Note that in that penultimate step, the pairwise difference between two colors (that have one marble left each) is 0. And that is the second concept to realize.

Now putting these two concepts together…

Well, we started with a, b and c being 10, 10 and 20. Going in steps of 0 and 3, can any of these numbers ever get to 0? No. Therefore it will never reach the penultimate step.

Which means the marbles will never be of the same color !!

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16 April 2021

Puzzle to get the weekend started

There is a large tray with red, blue and green marbles in it. In fact, there are 20 red marbles, 30 blue marbles and 40 green marbles. In that tray, the marbles are continuously moving around in Brownian (random) motion – often hitting each other.

If two marbles of same color hit each other, they just bounce off and continue. However, if two marbles of different color hit each other, then, both change to the third color and then bounce off and continue. All such hits are always between two marbles only. (no simultaneous three or more marbles hitting each other).

So a red and blue marble hitting each other will make both of them turn green and so on….

Is it ever possible for all the marbles in the tray to become of one color? If so, which color will it be?

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16 April 2021

From the bartender’s corner – Spicy Mangorita

Found a unique ingredient – Spicy Tamarind Vodka!! Made by Smirnoff. I am sure my friends from India would love it. Made the first cocktail from a suggestion in Smirnoff’s website – Spicy Mangorita!

Used Tajin salt to rim the glass and 5 ounces of mango juice, quarter of lime juice and one and a half ounces of spicy tamarind vodka for the drink. Came out fairly well!!

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15 April 2021

Happy New Year!

In case you are wondering why I am three and a half months late… well, today is the New Year’s Day in West Bengal (the state I come from in India). It is the year 1428 for us.

And if you are wondering why we celebrate three and a half months late… this might help…
(adapted from a post from seven years back)

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Today is New Year’s Day for us – the Bengalis. If you were not aware, we, the Bengalis originate from a small state in the Eastern part of India intuitively called “West Bengal”.

You might be wondering why do we celebrate New Year’s in the middle of April. To understand that, you have to have a deep appreciation for who we are.

First, and foremost, we hate cold weather. “Thanda legey jaabey” (“Thou shalt catch a cold”) is the most commonly uttered full Bengali sentence. (I believe closely followed by “Ombol hoyechhe” – that is a story for another day). The mercury has to hover somewhere around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and we promptly adorn our heads with monkey caps (a prehistoric version of the ski mask). With a pompom on the top, to boot!

Most of January we are under our “lep toshok” (quilts) – and that one pair of socks we seem to have a love affair with. Way too deep to come out and even remotely consider celebrating New Year’s. Mid April, on the other hand is nice and toasty in the high 80s. Which, is the perfect weather to come out and celebrate. A “half sweater” (sleeveless vest) goes just about fine with that weather and celebrations.

Second, we are a little overwhelmed by the concept of New Year’s resolutions made on January 1st. Especially, since almost all such resolutions somehow need us to go to the gym. Gyms and us get along as well as the Kardashians and the concept of staying married. We simply don’t understand the unholy haste to sweat ourselves to death in the gym. We get enough practice in our crowded buses and trying to chase the crows away from the food on our balconies. We are doing just fine with our rice and “rosogollas”, thank you very much!

And third, we need our regular festivals and the associated one week “casual leave” from work every month. When it comes to actually working and the work hours, the French have nothing on us. We scoff at the concept that they waste their parliament’s valuable time passing laws limiting work to only 20 hours a week. On that front, we are very self reliant. We do that ourselves without needing any stupid laws to help us.

For every month we have our earmarked festival – New Year’s in January (Oh! the irony!!), “Saraswati Pujo” in February, “Dol” in March, “Pochise Boisakh” in May and so on and so forth. April is the only month we had nothing. And lo and behold!- we chose April for our New Year’s! And to be fair to the bordering months, we chose bang in the middle of the month of April to celebrate our New Year’s!

Plus it is always a great sport to debate over which saree or “kurta” to wear while our American brethren toil the midnight oil to file their taxes!!

There! You have it now!!

Category: Humor | 2 Comments on Happy New Year!