OT: but Mr. Architect, why can't you make a perfect world?

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by vfb

Clever sheep would not set their reproduction rate to max, they would also set their own growth time to zero. Then you get infinite grass, infinite sheep, and a whole lot of happy wolves.

Clever sheep != sheep

[Sombre]

This ignores the well documented self culling that goes on in unsustainable animal populations.

[Illuminated One]

The only species that does multiply beyond limit are humans?

Which proves that clever sheep are the most advanced species on this planet. They are just to clever to show it.

[atul]

Beyond limit?

The history of warfare begs to differ, cullings do happen every now and then.

[Sombre]

We definitely self cull.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Silly Omni. If it were really an infinite amount of sheep, having an infinite amount of wolves would mean absolutely nothing. Yay for theoretical math!

That isn't true. At least according to my theoretical math class many years ago.

Series go to infinity with different speeds and thus have different sizes.

Infinity / Infinity can be any answer you want - depending on the series involved.

[Sombre]

That's a series tending to infinity. He's talking infinite sheep. Doesn't have a size.

[Foodstamp]

The take away point of this thread is that the word "Cull" is definitely fun to use.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Sombre

That's a series tending to infinity. He's talking infinite sheep. Doesn't have a size.

Well, the growing series is apparent in the simulation and the examples everyone else used...

If the series is changing the change is quantifiable; and series do indeed have size.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

Well, the growing series is apparent in the simulation and the examples everyone else used...

If the series is changing the change is quantifiable; and series do indeed have size.

I was thinking that too, but I think the function has a probability component, so each sheep or wolf has a probability to reproduce or to eat or be eaten. If that was the case, the function would not be a set limited by possible arguments, because any given argument could lead to different outcomes (infinite number in fact, just that most are highly unlikely).

therefore, we can't say that the series has a known size, only that each possible set of arguments has a distribution of outcomes. I guess we could have a series of known distributions...

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

The take away point of this thread is that the word "Cull" is definitely fun to use.

I think so, yes.