January 17, 2002

3:28 PM

NDb -(60% x Nc/Nt +40% x Dc/Dt) x 17,585
"Mathematicians called in by the Metropolitan Police think they have worked out the best way to beat crime in the capital."
Are there any UK mathematician/cops out there that know what the variables actually are?
posted by badstone (8 comments total)

(via Ananova)

NDb signifies the number of officers to be allocated to each borough.

The formula allocates 60% of officers according to a borough's need, which includes factors such as day-time and night-time population, unemployment and economic deprivation.

Nc is the need of a specific borough, and Nt is the need score across the whole of London.

The remaining 40% of officers are allocated according to the level of crime or demand.

Dc is the demand in a specific borough, and Dt the total demand.

The total number of officers available is 17,585.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:50 PM on January 17, 2002

Oh, and the original posted formula is incorrect, it's NDb=, not NDb-.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:51 PM on January 17, 2002

``It does have a very practical application. It isn't just something some mathematician's cooked up in a laboratory.''

Visions of Godel working on his next theorem, a flask of equations bubbling on a Bunsen burner to his side.
posted by andnbsp at 3:56 PM on January 17, 2002

ah, with well defined concepts like "need" and "demand" this is just so darn trivial. now the cops will have no problems whatever! just work out "need" and "demand " real quick each night, and you're done.
posted by badstone at 4:11 PM on January 17, 2002

annanova. heh.
posted by quonsar at 4:17 PM on January 17, 2002

Visions of Godel working on his next theorem, a flask of equations bubbling on a Bunsen burner to his side.

Let us represent each piece of lab equipment (including chemicals) with a certain chemical reaction. For example, the Erlenmeyer Flask will be represented by oxidization, the bunsen burner by combustion, and so forth. It is then obvious that we can represent any experiment as a series of unique chemical reactions. The series which represents burning something with a Bunsen Burner is, of course, the flame of the Bunsen Burner itself. We leave the remainder of Goedel's Laboratory Incompleteness Proof as an exercise to the reader.
posted by j.edwards at 5:19 PM on January 17, 2002

This may just be me, but I've never seen a % symbol in any respectable equation. I've seen a decimal point on the other side, but never a % symbol. Is this because the equation was dumbed down for the police, or was the dumbness a little farther up-stream?
posted by phalkin at 6:27 PM on January 17, 2002

Ah, I knew there had to be some good reason why I could never prove that danged Riemann Hypothesis, but now I know: Not enough chemicals!
posted by mattpfeff at 8:55 PM on January 17, 2002