How do you decrease something by 3,000 percent?

[JorgeA]

The following sentence caught my eye...

 

Sydney, Australia is using technology to improve and set new service benchmarks — from lowering wait times in public centers from hours to six minutes, to shortening the time it takes to get a seniors’ card by 3,000 percent.

 

...and got me wondering. If you lower something by, say, 50 percent, you're cutting the amount of it in half. If you lower it by 99 percent, you're leaving one percent in place. And if you cut it by 100 percent, there is nothing left. Right?

 

So, how is it mathematically possible to decrease something by 3,000 percent? Say you had 1,000 chickens in your farm last night, but foxes and wolves banded together to break into the henhouse; after several terrifying hours, by the time you woke up they had cut your chicken head count by "3,000 percent." How many chickens do you have left now at the end of the rampage?

 

--JorgeA

 

[jaclaz]

Well, time is different from chicken, it is the fourth dimension, and has no legs .

By extending the properties of thiotimoline to the wait times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline
they can well have you serviced BEFORE you actually asked for it, or in the case of the senior card, they are going to issue it for the baby the same day the pregnancy test comes out positive^[1].

By analyzing the DNA of the couple and cleverly social engineering the data they got on them, they will be able to know if male or female and how you are gonna call the baby.

 

There is already an underground movement making use of random generators for names of babies (from idioms) as a form of civil resistance, in a few years when you will meet an Aussie that will say to you Senderdownhughie or Shellbeapples it's not you that are not understanding, it may be the actual name.

 

jaclaz

 

 

 

^[1] A new Law to make Wi-Fi connected pregnancy tests mandatory is in the works.


 

Edited August 8, 2015 by jaclaz

[dencorso]

Yes. If one gives 100% the ontologic meaning of "all", then it's impossible, it would require underflow, an impossible phenomenon in our physical reality (imagine one buys a banana hand having 6 bananas, then plucks and eats, say, 7 bananas out of it: that's underflow). But in the word of computing, buffers may underflow, all right! And that may cause very real security issues, BTW. So, by letting ontology aside, for a moment, and looking at it just from a mathematical point-of-view, 3000% is a somewhat euphemistic way of saying "30"... Then again, if the idea is to obfuscate, I, for one, would rather prefer to say "half again a score"!

 

In any case, to cut the chicken head count by 3000% would require a helluva overkill !!!

BTW, I seem to remember vaguely a scene featuring an underflowing drinking-glass in one of the Matrix movies... Is there really one such scene or have I just dreamt it?

[alacran]

The mathematical approach is this:

 

3000 %  = 30

 

So shortening (or decrease) by 3000 % = 1/30

 

If your actual time is 100 seconds then 100/30 = 3.333 seconds.

 

 

Oposite if you increase by 3000 % = *30 or 30x

 

If your actual time is 100 seconds then 100 x 30 = 30000 seconds.

Edited August 8, 2015 by alacran

[JorgeA]

Yes. If one gives 100% the ontologic meaning of "all", then it's impossible, it would require underflow, an impossible phenomenon in our physical reality (imagine one buys a banana hand having 6 bananas, then plucks and eats, say, 7 bananas out of it: that's underflow). But in the word of computing, buffers may underflow, all right! And that may cause very real security issues, BTW. So, by letting ontology aside, for a moment, and looking at it just from a mathematical point-of-view, 3000% is a somewhat euphemistic way of saying "30"... Then again, if the idea is to obfuscate, I, for one, would rather prefer to say "half again a score"!

 

 

Huh, I'd never hear of this concept of underflow. Sure wouldn't mind getting 7 or 8 bananas out of a bunch of 6...

 

In any case, to cut the chicken head count by 3000% would require a helluva overkill !!!

 

Using the same underflow concept, the foxes and wolves who mounted such a successful attack on my farm would have left me, what, 29,000 chickens in the red.   I'd be forced to go on a massive chicken-buying binge just to get back to where I was before.

 

BTW, I seem to remember vaguely a scene featuring an underflowing drinking-glass in one of the Matrix movies... Is there really one such scene or have I just dreamt it?

 

I've been meaning to watch those movies all over again, especially the first one. This gives me a good excuse to actually do it.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Well, time is different from chicken, it is the fourth dimension, and has no legs .

By extending the properties of thiotimoline to the wait times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline

they can well have you serviced BEFORE you actually asked for it, or in the case of the senior card, they are going to issue it for the baby the same day the pregnancy test comes out positive^[1].

By analyzing the DNA of the couple and cleverly social engineering the data they got on them, they will be able to know if male or female and how you are gonna call the baby.

 

There is already an underground movement making use of random generators for names of babies (from idioms) as a form of civil resistance, in a few years when you will meet an Aussie that will say to you Senderdownhughie or Shellbeapples it's not you that are not understanding, it may be the actual name.

 

jaclaz

 

 

 

^[1] A new Law to make Wi-Fi connected pregnancy tests mandatory is in the works.

 

 

 

 

That's a fabulous discussion of this "compound," thiotimoline, in Wikipedia!

 

By analyzing the DNA of the couple and cleverly social engineering the data they got on them, they will be able to know if male or female and how you are gonna call the baby.

 

But that will be possible only if the parents are using Windows 10 or its successors, certainly not on Windows 7.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

The mathematical approach is this:

 

3000 %  = 30

 

So shortening (or decrease) by 3000 % = 1/30

 

If your actual time is 100 seconds then 100/30 = 3.333 seconds.

 

 

Oposite if you increase by 3000 % = *30 or 30x

 

If your actual time is 100 seconds then 100 x 30 = 30000 seconds.

 

Hmmm... thinking about it, this is probably what the guy quoted in the linked article had in mind when talking about decreasing the time needed to get a seniors' card by 3000%. Thanks for clarifying!

 

Consider this, though: if 3000% = 30, then 200% = 2. But since we're talking about increases and decreases, we face a relatively minor issue and a relatively major issue.

 

The relatively minor issue is that a 200% increase does not equate to a doubling (2x) of the starting amount. For example, if we increase the price of coffee beans by 100%, it goes from (say) $10/pound to $20/pound, since 100% of $10 is $10 and $10 + $10 = $20. By the same token, if we increase the price by 200%, it goes from  $10/pound to $30/pound ($10 starting + [$10 + $10]), or triple (3x) the original price. So a "two hundred percent" increase actually means "three times" the original amount. Therefore a 3000% increase leaves you with 31 times the starting figure. It's not 30x, but 31x.

 

But this is a relative quibble compared to the following: If a 3000% decrease is taken to mean 1/30, then by extension a 200% decrease would mean 1/2 -- that is, half of the original amount, or 50%. Hence, by this logic, a 200% decrease would amount to the same thing as a 50% decrease.

 

That's why I'd say it's both logically and linguistically more correct (more accurate, less confusing) to say that a new technique yielded a "97% decrease" (OK, 96.66666...%) in the amount of time needed to accomplish a task, than to say that it led to a "3000% decrease" in the amount of time needed. Or say simply that it took 1/30th as much time as it used to before the change.

 

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

The mathematical approach is this:

 

3000 %  = 30

 

So shortening (or decrease) by 3000 % = 1/30

You use strange math (or English, or both).

If you increase you SUM a quantity, if you decrease you SUBTRACT a quantity to what you have.

Let's keep the 100 "base".

If you increase that quantity by 100% you have 100+100*100%=200 the "increase" is the + sign

If you increase that quantity by 200% you have 100+100*200%=300

...

The value of the increase is what you have after - what you had before, i.e.:

You have now 300, you had before 100, the quantity was increased by 200, which you can express as percentage of the original 100 as 200%.

If you decrease that quantity by 10% you have 100-100*10%=90 the "decrease" is the - sign.

if you decrease that quantity by 20% you have 100-100*20%=80

...

The value of the decrease is what you have after - what you had before, i.e.:

You have now 80, you had before 100, the quantity was decreased by 20, which you can express as percentage of the original 100 as 20%.

"Shortening by" is not the same as "decrease".

jaclaz

[alacran]

I understand Shortening by = dividing by,  I should not have made any mention of decreasing wich is minus something. My mistake.

 

The mathematical expression is OK my poor English not.

 

The question Was about shortening by 3000 %

 

3000 %  = 30000/100 = 30 3000/100 = 30 (Edited I had extra zero)

 

So shortening by 3000 % = 1/30 of initial quantity or 0.03333x

 

So if initial quantity is 100 then 100/30 = 3.333  or 100 x 0.03333 = 3.333

 

 

Edit: Typo

Edited August 11, 2015 by alacran

[jaclaz]

@alacran

Sure , the point was only that "shortening by" is not the same as "decreasing".

"Reduced to 1/30th" would have been however much more understandable.

The "shortening by"  managed to trick JorgeA (whom should be native English speaking) in falling for it, so I wouldn't call your English "poor", rather that of the Author of the referenced article might need some adjustments.

 

jaclaz

Edited August 11, 2015 by jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

I keep thinking that the sentence is written backwards. It sounds more like it was calculated that there was a 3000% increase in efficiency or some other metric. The author cites a specific example in senior card, whatever that is. The data sources are not cited, so we can't say for sure how this figure came to be.

[JorgeA]

I understand Shortening by = dividing by,  I should not have made any mention of decreasing wich is minus something. My mistake.

 

The mathematical expression is OK my poor English not.

 

The question Was about shortening by 3000 %

 

3000 %  = 30000/100 = 30

 

So shortening by 3000 % = 1/30 of initial quantity or 0.03333x

 

So if initial quantity is 100 then 100/30 = 3.333  or 100 x 0.03333 = 3.333

 

Let's follow this logically. To illustrate what I've been saying, I am going to plug in different numbers for the ones you have there:

 

Suppose that the question was about shortening by 100%

 

100% = 100/100 = 1

 

So shortening by 100% = 1/1 of initial quantity or 1.0000x

 

So if the initial quantity is 100 then 100/1 = 100 or 100 x 1 = 100

 

 

This would mean, then, that "shortening something by 100%" is equivalent to leaving it unchanged.

 

I maintain that it is not possible to decrease (or shorten) anything by 3000%. Proper use of language would be (unlike the expert quoted in the OP) to say that the figure was decreased by 97%, or decreased to 1/30th of what it had been.

 

@Tripredacus is right IMHO. The language is getting some nonsensical pseudomathematical expressions injected into it, like the example we've been talking about. Another one that also annoys me (but has a bit more logic to it) is when people say that X is "three times less likely" than Y. Huh? It takes additional mental processing to understand that the speaker probably means that Y is three times more likely than X. Why not simply say that? Or say that X is one-third as likely as Y?

 

--JorgeA

[alacran]

@ JorgeA

 

Yes, you are right and I am wrong.

 

It was very badly written for a a guy that wanted to make more impact to the mind using 3000% (which sound as very big number) and then he created a non sense.

 

As you may already note English is not my mother tongue, what happened to me is that the only possible way to make it have sense is taking it as 1/(3000%) = 1/30 and when I read it my mind just take it that way, ignoring the meaning of each single word.

 

Because LITERALY he is saying:

 

100% - 3000% = (100/100) - (3000/100) = 1 - 30 = - 29  (negative time) which means you get the info before it has been send, (Great invention TIME MACHINE).

Edited August 11, 2015 by alacran

[jaclaz]

which means you get the info before it has been send, (Great invention TIME MACHINE).

... and hence the reference to thiotimoline, though of course a time pussy or Pallan cat would have worked more or less the same:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Pussy

 

Old Mac tells the narrator about some cat-like animals he knew on Pallas that existed in four dimensions: in addition to the usual spatial dimensions, the Pallan cats "stretched somewheres into middle o' next week" (and were thus living precursors of Asimov's fictional chemical compound thiotimoline). The "time pussies" would howl twenty-four hours before seeing a burglar, and digest their meals three hours before eating them.

 

jaclaz

[alacran]

 I like Asimov's books but I haven't read that one. First time you posted that Iink I din't check it. This time I follow the link and now know what you mean.