VART3504 - Instructional Piece

Instructional Piece

Possible:
Draw a square on the ground, then inscribe a circle within it.
Take a piece of paper, tear it into equal pieces - one for each person in the room.
Distribute these to each person.
Individually compress each piece to the smallest size possible.
Individually drop each piece over the square.
Count the number of objects inside the circle.
Multiply this by the total number of objects.
Write this result in the centre of the circle.

Impossible:
Divide the result by zero.

Inscribed circle within square

Based loosely on the (Monte Carlo Method) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_method

Monte Carlo methods vary, but tend to follow a particular pattern:

1. Define a domain of possible inputs.
2. Generate inputs randomly from a probability distribution over the domain.
3. Perform a deterministic computation on the inputs.
4. Aggregate the results.

Division by zero:
Why can't we divide by zero?