Chapter 35: Woe is me! What is the use of studying this mathematics?
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Huo Qitai paid no further attention to the Lin family. To quarrel with people like them would only drag down his own standing without limit.
After leaving the hotel and taking a look around, Huo Qitai could not help reflecting that perhaps half the people in Ji’an City had come to line up.
With the combined effect of multiple marketing campaigns, the commotion surpassed Huo Qitai’s expectations by far.
“There are so many people! Brother Huo, we’re only holding the lectures for three days. Aren’t we going to lose out badly? Shouldn’t we add a few more sessions?”
Xue Xiaoshan made the suggestion somewhat reluctantly.
Huo Qitai, however, shook his head. “Too much of a good thing can be harmful. There are fewer than three thousand high-school seniors in Ji’an City. Even counting the first- and second-year students, there are fewer than ten thousand in total. Three sessions, with roughly two thousand places, should be enough.
“We need to move quickly. We can’t linger in Ji’an City for too long. There are still eight other county-level cities nearby, and beyond them, even more prefecture-level cities…”
“Oh, right! No wonder my father always says I lack vision. I’ve been fixated on this little place called Ji’an City—how much money can we make here, anyway? We have to expand outward.”
Xue Xiaoshan nodded repeatedly. In just these few days, under Huo Qitai’s influence, he too was growing rapidly.
“Uncle Ergou is up ahead. Let’s go see him.”
Seeing Xue Ergou leading more than fifty people in line ahead of them, Huo Qitai got out of the car.
“Xiaotai, how is it? I brought all these people to line up. It won’t interfere with your plans, will it?”
Xue Ergou still seemed somewhat uneasy.
“It won’t. Even if you brought a hundred people to line up, it would only add to our momentum. There’s no harm in it.”
“That won’t do! We’re already near the back of the line, and I don’t even know whether we’ll get our turn to buy tickets. If I hired all these people and we still couldn’t buy any, I’d be taking a loss.”
Xue Ergou waved his hand. He still knew how to control risk.
Soon, as the clock struck ten, ticket sales for the lecture began. At once, the crowd waiting at the front erupted in an uproar.
“How is that fair? We stood in line all night, and now we still have to draw lots for the right to buy tickets?”
“If we’d known this beforehand, what was the point of waiting in line for so long?”
“No! You have to give us an explanation.”
…
When the hotel announced the lottery rules for purchasing tickets, the scalpers and parents who had lined up overnight began protesting indignantly.
The Lin family, who had been preparing for a confrontation, were completely dumbfounded.
Lin Yan tugged at her throat and began making a scene like a shrewish woman. “I don’t care! Our whole family has been lining up since ten last night. You have to give us four tickets!”
She had originally intended to make a fuss in order to highlight how hard her family had worked waiting in line.
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She wanted to stir up sympathy among those around her, rally them to her side, and force the hotel to compromise—at the very least, to give each person near the front of the line one ticket.
However…
Wu Liangxing, who had been watching the situation, was delighted. Seizing upon her as a prime example, he pointed a loudspeaker at Lin Yan and shouted, “We never asked you to come so early. And your entire family of four came to line up—weren’t you just trying to buy extra tickets and resell them at a markup? You’re scalpers. Our rules exist precisely to guard against people like you.”
His words immediately stirred up the people farther back in line.
“Drive the scalpers out!”
“A family of four came to line up, and she still has the nerve to complain?”
“I think using a lottery to sell the tickets is the fairest way. It all comes down to luck!”
“That shameless girl—Manager, you should count their whole family as having only one chance to draw.”
…
Lin Yan had been about to argue, but upon hearing this, she quickly ducked her head and shrank back into the crowd.
They had tried to gain an advantage and only ended up worse off. If the hotel manager really singled them out and targeted them, they would have wasted an entire night standing in line.
Of the one hundred balls, twenty were red and entitled the holder to purchase a ticket.
A twenty percent chance was not especially low.
Lin Yan huddled among the crowd and carefully studied the rules for drawing a ball. Then she said to her younger brother, Lin Qi, “The four of us have four chances to draw, and the balls aren’t put back afterward. This is a classic mathematical problem combining permutations, combinations, and probability. Xiaoqi, hand me the paper and pen in your bag…”
Scratch, scratch, scratch!
Lin Yan had just finished the college entrance examination and was at the peak of her lifetime in both intelligence and accumulated knowledge.
To calculate the probability that her family would draw at least one red ball—P(at least one red ball)—she first had to calculate the probability of drawing no red balls at all, P(no red balls), and then subtract that value from one…
“I’ve got it! P(no red balls) equals 80/100 multiplied by 79/99, then multiplied by 78/98, and finally multiplied by 77/97.
“That comes to approximately 40.3 percent, so P(at least one red ball) is roughly 59.7 percent. That’s not a low probability!
“Mom, Dad, our family has nearly a sixty percent chance of buying tickets…”
After calculating for quite some time, Lin Yan was sweating profusely, yet she proudly and joyfully showed her parents and younger brother the probability she had worked out on the paper.
She felt that she had put her knowledge to practical use, applying what she had learned from her textbooks to a real situation. It was an impressive achievement.
But before she could bask in her triumph for even two seconds, her father, Lin Songsheng, began pacing anxiously in circles.
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“Yan’er, what use is that calculation? Of the first hundred balls, nearly fifty have already been drawn, and eighteen of them were red.
“Now there are only two red balls left in the box, and by the time it’s our turn, there’ll still be more than forty balls inside!”
“What? How could that happen? I’ll calculate it again right now…”
Before Lin Yan could even pick up her pen, the people ahead of them erupted in another round of cries.
“I got one! I got one! A red ball! There were only two red balls left, and I still managed to draw one. I’m incredibly lucky!”
The person held up the red ball and happily went to buy a ticket.
Those still waiting behind him, however, all wore mournful expressions.
That was because among the remaining forty balls, only one red ball was left.
What had initially appeared to be a twenty percent chance had become a mere 2.5 percent by the time it reached them.
“Don’t panic! Don’t panic! We still have a chance. There’s still one red ball…”
Lin Yan’s turn was almost at hand. She kept reassuring herself while praying that the person in front of her would not draw the last red ball.
Yet fate seemed determined to thwart her. After another cry of surprise, the person held up a red ball and laughed loudly.
“The last red ball! I got it! Ha-ha! Sorry to everyone behind me—you’ve waited in vain!”
Seeing the final red ball drawn, Wu Liangxing, who was holding the lottery box, counted thirty-seven people backward and asked, “There are no red balls left. Do you still want to draw? If not, go home. Don’t waste time—there are still many people waiting behind you!”
Those words became the final straw that broke Lin Yan.
Her entire family had excitedly stayed awake half the night to wait in line.
And now, the family of four did not even have the chance to draw a ball and try their luck…
Not even once!
With a muffled thud, Lin Yan collapsed limply onto the ground, her eyes vacant. She cried out unwillingly, “How could this happen? How could this happen?
“The probability was clearly close to sixty percent. I didn’t calculate it wrong! I didn’t!
“Boo-hoo! What use was it for me to study mathematics? What use was it?”
…
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