Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Chicken Math

I got two more eggs today, adding to the one yesterday.  We have three chickens, so in principle we should get three eggs per day. But we don't.  Sometimes we get one, sometimes two, sometimes three.  I've been trying to figure out how many eggs each hen is laying, and I haven't come up with anything conclusive.  But I have some ideas:

1. Each hens lays every other day. So that would mean:
  • Day 1 - one egg (say Larry)
  • Day 2 - one egg (say Daryl 1)
  • Day 3 - two eggs (Larry and Daryl 2)
  • Day 4 - one egg (Daryl 1)
  • Day 5 - two eggs (Larry and Daryl 2)
  • ...etc...
2. Primes.  I think each hen may be laying on days evenly divisible by a small prime number.  For example, Larry lays every day, Daryl 1 every 2nd day, and Daryl 2 every 3rd day.  That would give me 1 egg each day plus an extra egg on even days, plus an extra egg every third day.  Our hens know prime numbers?  Where is Carl Sagan?

3. Fibonacci Numbers.  This is my new theory.  I get one egg, one egg, two eggs, three eggs, then back to one egg.  So I am getting a cycle of the first four numbers in the Fibonacci sequence.  This rocks my world, because that means my chickens know the Fibonacci numbers.  Weird!

4. Pi.  I'm serious.  Look at this:  with three chickens, I get one egg (one plus three is 4) then I get one egg, and one plus four is five.  Add up all the numbers greater than one not including three and you get nine: 3.14159.  Weird!

Until I get three per day, I'll keep up on this.  Stay tuned!

1 comment:

Adam said...

I'm worried about you.