The Wisdom of the CrowdWhich are your favourite quiz games?Listen to the first part of the quiz and make notes on how the game The Wisdom of the Crowd works.

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Listen to the next part of the quiz and note down the question.2

What do you think the answer is?b

listening

Listen to the next part of the quiz and make notes on Jonathan Coulton’s reasoning, his answer and the audience’s answer.

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Whose answer do you think is the closest?bListen to the next part of the quiz and check your ideas.2

Listen to the next part of the quiz and note down the question.2

What do you think the answer is?b

Listen to the next part of the quiz and make notes on Jonathan Coulton’s reasoning, his answer and the audience’s answer.

2

Whose answer do you think is the closest?b

Listen to the next part of the quiz and check your ideas.2

Listen to the next part of the quiz and note down the question.2

What do you think the answer is?b

Listen to the next part of the quiz and make notes on Jonathan Coulton’s reasoning, his answer and the audience’s answer.

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Whose answer do you think is the closest?bListen to the final part of the quiz, check your ideas and find out what the contestant’s prize is.

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advanced (C1)week of 13.02.17

student pages 1

Transcript

Teacher’s notes 1

2JONATHAN COULTON: This is ASK ME ANOTHER. I’m Jonathan Coulton, here with puzzle guru Art Chung. Now here’s your host, Ophira Eisenberg.OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST: Thanks, Jonathan. First, it’s time for a game we call The Wisdom of the Crowd. Puzzle guru Art Chung, tell us about this concept.PUZZLE GURU ART CHUNG: Sure. The classic example of the wisdom of the crowd is having a large group of people estimate how many jelly beans there are in a jar. Even though some of them might have really way-off guesses, when you take the average of everyone’s guess, you find you’re pretty close to the right answer.EISENBERG: That’s an interesting concept. I can’t think of any examples from history where a large group of people made a terrible decision. But joining us to test the wisdom of our crowd is another

returning contestant, Andrew Kaufman. You’re working on a Ph.D. in food science - a matter of fact, I believe you’ve completed it.ANDREW KAUFMAN: I did, this fall.EISENBERG: Welcome back to ASK ME ANOTHER.KAUFMAN: Thank you very much. It’s good to be back.EISENBERG: You are a very smart guy, Andrew. So in this game, you’re going to decide whose wisdom you trust, a recent live audience that we polled here at the Bell House or Jonathan Coulton.KAUFMAN: OK.EISENBERG: Who kind of, as a one-man house band, qualifies as a crowd.COULTON: Basically, I’m a crowd. That’s right.EISENBERG: Yes.COULTON: People tell me that all the time.

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EISENBERG: OK. So here we go. Jonathan Coulton, according to a corn expert at Iowa State University, how many kernels are there

on an average ear of corn?2

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KAUFMAN: Are we going “Price Is Right” rules where you can’t go over?EISENBERG: Just closest - just closest. Yeah, you don’t have to...KAUFMAN: I’m going to go with the audience.EISENBERG: You’re going to say the audience was closer. Guess what? The answer is 575.KAUFMAN: Wow.

EISENBERG: The audience was super close.KAUFMAN: It’s a smart crowd.EISENBERG: Yeah. Between 550 and 600 kernels on an average ear of corn, says the assistant professors and extension-cropping systems specialist, I guess where they hang out and count corn kernels.

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COULTON: Kernels on an average ear of corn - I’m going to figure out the surface area, roughly, of a cob of corn.EISENBERG: All right.COULTON: So circumference is two-pi-R - say an average of an inch over the length of corn, which tapers, maybe an average of a one-inch radius.EISENBERG: Yeah.KAUFMAN: That’s a pretty thin piece of corn.COULTON: Let’s say an inch because it’s going to make the math easier.EISENBERG: Sure.COULTON: So we’re talking two-pi-R is going to be six. Ear of corn

is maybe 10 inches long, let’s say. So 60 inches surface area.EISENBERG: Yeah.COULTON: Kernels per square inch - maybe a four-by-four. So 16 times 60. So 600 - 960.EISENBERG: 960?COULTON: Nine-hundred-sixty kernels...EISENBERG: All right.COULTON: On average.EISENBERG: That was brilliant math talked out loud.EISENBERG: OK, so Jonathan Coulton says 960. Our audience thinks the answer is 506. Andrew, who is closer to the real answer, Jonathan or the crowd?

EISENBERG: OK. Jonathan Coulton, according to the website wordcounter.net, how many words are in “Harry Potter” Books 1

through 7 added together?5

The Wisdom of the Crowd listening

CHUNG: Oh, that’s a lot.COULTON: Ugh. All right, seven books...EISENBERG: Yep.COULTON: I haven’t read any of these books. Don’t tell anybody. I don’t know why you’re so mad. We all get to decide what we read and don’t read - so far. Seven books - how long is one of these

books? Maybe 300 pages. More pages than 300 pages? Five hundred pages - what is 250 pages a word. So that’s - what? - I’m totally lost. I’m going to say 1.5 million words. EISENBERG: Jonathan Coulton says 1.5 million words. Our audience thinks the answer is 2,429,490,000...COULTON: Not feeling so bad about my choices.

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EISENBERG: Six hundred and eighty-four. Andrew?KAUFMAN: I’m going to go with Jonathan this time.EISENBERG: Yeah, you’re right again. The answer is 1,084,170.COULTON: Wow. Hey, I did OK.EISENBERG: Yeah.COULTON: Didn’t even read the books.

EISENBERG: You did great. I love that our audience collectively said 2 billion. That’s what they want it to be.KAUFMAN: Basic math skills.EISENBERG: They were like, we just wanted another 2 billion words, J.K. Clearly, that’s the only thing she abbreviated.

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EISENBERG: Jonathan Coulton, what’s the longest consecutive time anyone’s spent in space by number of days?8

COULTON: I’m just thinking in terms of order of magnitude. I don’t know if anyone has stayed longer than a year. That’s possible, but I can’t recall specifically hearing of anybody who’s stayed longer than a year, so I’m going to say a number of months. I’m going to say nine months.EISENBERG: OK.COULTON: Time enough to gestate a baby - in space.KAUFMAN: So how many is that in days?COULTON: You’re really going to make me multiply nine times 30?

EISENBERG: Like, do you want to say like...KAUFMAN: If you can.EISENBERG: ...Yeah, 270?COULTON: Yeah, I’m going to say 270.EISENBERG: OK.COULTON: Make it 275.EISENBERG: Two-seventy-five.EISENBERG: Our audience thinks the answer is 404. Andrew, who’s closer to the real answer, Jonathan or the crowd?

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KAUFMAN: You know, I’m thinking that it’s possible someone stayed up longer than a year. So I think I’ll go with the audience this time.EISENBERG: Yeah, that was correct again. It’s actually 438 days. Valerie Polyakov in Russia was up there for 438 days, but no one noticed clearly. OK, Andrew got them all right.KAUFMAN: I appreciate your scientific method.

EISENBERG: Yeah, that was very good.COULTON: Thank you. I appreciate your being a scientist.EISENBERG: We are going to give you an ASK ME ANOTHER T-shirt and the shoes of a Mr. Potato head that we found backstage.KAUFMAN: This is so exciting.EISENBERG: Andrew, thank you so much for helping us out.KAUFMAN: Thank you so much.

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