Chicken and Eggs - finally solved

[TheExcession]

For a few months now I've been having endless rounds of discussion with our little lad (7) about which came first, the chicken or the egg?

As you can imagine it's getting a little monotonous now and his frustration at the argument is beginning to show.

However, today he managed to apply a little latteral thinking that made me smile, it went like this.

LittelEx: ".. the chicken came first..."
Ex: "But where did the chicken come from?"
LittleEx: "An egg"
Ex: "But where did that egg come from? Surely you needed a chicken to lay the egg?"
LittleEx: "Nope, God layed it"

Priceless!

best
Ex

[D_Mike]

interesting. god isn't a mammal so evolutionarily we are superior to god.

[sadako]

The egg came first because the genetic mutation that created the first chicken was present in the first egg, but it was layed by a non-chicken

[madmike]

D_Mike said:

interesting. god isn't a mammal so evolutionarily we are superior to god.

Better yet, instead of heading off to communion Sunday to get a flavorless wafer, I'm off to KFC to get some juicy, southern fried god.

[minimax]

madmike said:

D_Mike said: interesting. god isn't a mammal so evolutionarily we are superior to god. Better yet, instead of heading off to communion Sunday to get a flavorless wafer, I'm off to KFC to get some juicy, southern fried god.

[mxdi]

A genius in the making.

After all they told me when I was at school that God made man.

[BliarOut]

Ok, here's my go....

The chicken must come first. A chicken is an actual chicken, while an egg is only a potential chicken... Now IIRC actuality must always precede potentiality, ergo I'm right

Bloody KFC, I'm still on a diet

[v8thunder]

All organisms formed from separating cells, which is what happens inside an egg, right?

Therefore, cells became eggs became chickens, chickens perpetuated their species through eggs. So it was the eggs.

[BliarOut]

v8thunder said:

All organisms formed from separating cells, which is what happens inside an egg, right?

Err, I dunno but my answer still sounds clever

[cotty]

TheExcession said:

LittelEx: ".. the chicken came first..." Ex: "But where did the chicken come from?" LittleEx: "An egg" Ex: "But where did that egg come from? Surely you needed a chicken to lay the egg?" LittleEx: "Nope, God layed it"

I know he is only young but how can the chicken come first if it came from an egg.

ill get my coat

[Byff]

God created Man and Woman. They went on to create babies.

God created the Chicken that went on to lay eggs.

Simple.

[BliarOut]

Byff said:

God created Man and Woman. They went on to create babies. God created the Chicken that went on to lay eggs. Simple.

We evolved from some fish like thingumy

[love machine]

I read an interesting statement recently which I found rather profound.

Your genetic code has been ejaculated through countless thousands of penii !
There's a thought eh?

You could say that in essence the chicken was only a manifestation of its genetic code which had beginnings in the late precambrian! before eggs had been invented


>> Edited by love machine on Sunday 13th February 20:42

[Plotloss]

Good lad!!

Sounds like you have a right bright one there.

It was eggs though, reptiles were around millions of years before birds...

[wedg1e]

Plotloss said:

Good lad!! Sounds like you have a right bright one there. It was eggs though, reptiles were around millions of years before birds...

Maybe reptiles were viviparous back then?

[yertis]

Here's another conundrum posited by a three year old of my acquaintance: "If a giant was infinity high, how high would his waist be?"

[BliarOut]

yertis said:

Here's another conundrum posited by a three year old of my acquaintance: "If a giant was infinity high, how high would his waist be?"

Half infinity of course

[D_Mike]

half infinity, obviously.

i like infinity, here is a cool trick:

imagine switching a lamp on and then off an infinite amount of times in one minute. this bit is easy - you switch it on, wait 30 seconds, switch it off, wait 15 seconds, switch it on, wait 7.5 seconds, switch it off, wait 3.25 seconds, switch it on, wait 1.625 seconds etc.

at the end of a minute is the light on or off? this is easy to work out:

+1 represents on
-1 represents off

so if we write out the infinite sum as a series S,

1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 -1 + 1 - 1 +....

after even switchings the light is on (the answer is 1)
after odd switchings the light is off (answer is zero)

so to work out the state of the light after one minute we just calculate the infinite sum.

you can group terms in the series so that the eventual sum is either 0 or 1:

(1-1) + (1-1) + (1-1) +... (same as first series but with brackets, the eventual sum is 0)

or

1 + (1-1) + (1-1) + (1-1) +... (again, same as first series but with brackets, eventual sum is 1)

the series can also be written as:

S = 1 - (1-1+1-1+1-1+...) (again, just playing with brackets).

but note that the bit in the brackets in the series S above is the same as the original series (right at the top).

so S = 1 - S (by substitution of the bit in brackets above for S, because they're identical).

is S = 1 - S then:

S = S = 1

which means S = 1/2

so at the end of the infinite series of switchings the light is not on or not off. Cool eh?

[cammers]

OK, so how about this other philosophical question...

If a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?

[D_Mike]

define sound.