3Jul/095
Extrapolating
by Jeff
Image meta text: By the third trimester, there will be hundreds of babies inside you.
The math in this comic is extrapolating that if in the period of a day to go from 0 to 1, that means that the next day you should go from 1 to 2 and so on. Extrapolating is usually used on graphs with more data points than 1!
The same can be said for the meta text. O to 1 baby, then 1 to 2 babies and so on.
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I Am Not A Ninja »
May 26th, 2010
You should probably change that to “more data points than 2″… :-B
December 22nd, 2011
Came here to say that, too. Also it really should mention that the underlying problem is with only two points, there’s not enough data to choose the correct model for extrapolation.
December 29th, 2011
Seconded. Some data is linear (0 on day 0, 1 on day 1, 2 on day 2…); Some is exponential (0 on day 0, 1 on day 1, 3 on day 2, 6 on day 3…); there are many other functions, and some data simply doesn’t fit a function (such as the examples given in the comic) and can’t be extrapolated. Other data can be extrapolated, but only based on a trend line, and not based on the actual data.
May 15th, 2011
thank goodness the comic is false
December 28th, 2011
The interesting part is that Megan looks thoughtful in this comic.