Pizza Maths
It started, as so many unfortunate events do, with a phone call to my mother.
Me: Anyway, I'd better go and order a pizza. It won't be here until about 9:30 at this rate.
She: Then you should have ordered it an hour ago.
Me: Ah, you're assuming that it would have taken the same length of time to get here regardless of when I ordered it. Perhaps they were really busy an hour ago and had a two-hour backlog!
She: blah blah blah (I'd switched off by now to try to work out the Pizza Maths problem, which follows).
I'm not going to get my pizza until about 9:30, because I didn't order it until 8:30 and at this time of night it usually takes them about an hour. If I order earlier, then perhaps they're not so busy and it comes quicker, so for the sake of example, perhaps orders placed at 7:30 arrive at 8. The question I posed was this: ignoring things like the fact that pizza restaurants closed, is it possible to have your pizza arrive at any time you like?
My initial thinking went*... If the function governing delivery time is nice and continuous, it will have a nice continous inverse, so you could just put your desired time in and backtrack to find when to place your order. But I think it's more complicated than that. The function governing delivery time depends on the number of orders received, so the very fact of you placing your order will change the delivery time (because they have an extra order to process). I think I've found a way round it though; assuming there are lots of other people, none of whom are doing Pizza Maths and trying to get their delivery at a particular time, then my order will be negligible in comparison and thus the delivery time function won't be affected by it.
Then all my thinking was proved to be in vain, because there' s a function on the website where you can choose your delivery time. Dominos must be doing Pizza Maths after all.
*If you read all this and it made any sense whatsoever, please leave me a comment to convince me that I'm not completely deranged. If you didn't, I think you probably made the right decision.
Me: Anyway, I'd better go and order a pizza. It won't be here until about 9:30 at this rate.
She: Then you should have ordered it an hour ago.
Me: Ah, you're assuming that it would have taken the same length of time to get here regardless of when I ordered it. Perhaps they were really busy an hour ago and had a two-hour backlog!
She: blah blah blah (I'd switched off by now to try to work out the Pizza Maths problem, which follows).
I'm not going to get my pizza until about 9:30, because I didn't order it until 8:30 and at this time of night it usually takes them about an hour. If I order earlier, then perhaps they're not so busy and it comes quicker, so for the sake of example, perhaps orders placed at 7:30 arrive at 8. The question I posed was this: ignoring things like the fact that pizza restaurants closed, is it possible to have your pizza arrive at any time you like?
My initial thinking went*... If the function governing delivery time is nice and continuous, it will have a nice continous inverse, so you could just put your desired time in and backtrack to find when to place your order. But I think it's more complicated than that. The function governing delivery time depends on the number of orders received, so the very fact of you placing your order will change the delivery time (because they have an extra order to process). I think I've found a way round it though; assuming there are lots of other people, none of whom are doing Pizza Maths and trying to get their delivery at a particular time, then my order will be negligible in comparison and thus the delivery time function won't be affected by it.
Then all my thinking was proved to be in vain, because there' s a function on the website where you can choose your delivery time. Dominos must be doing Pizza Maths after all.
*If you read all this and it made any sense whatsoever, please leave me a comment to convince me that I'm not completely deranged. If you didn't, I think you probably made the right decision.
posted by Fluffy at 8:41 pm
5 Comments:
Sorry you lost me at: "My initial thinking went*..."
but I think you need to talk to Simon. He'll know, he knows the most about Pizzas.
It's very similar to driving-home-from-work maths: leaving five minutes later can mean twenty minutes difference to your arrival time.
And that's my preferred method when I'm not shattered from a long week, nay, term, at work. But I was feeling lazy yesterday so I just did a Simon instead!
Extra cheese on mine please.
I use my bread machine to make the dough and then sort my own topping. Or I get a pizza out of the freezer, a choice of several varieties. Or I make cheese on toast!
Post a Comment
<< Home