Calculating the Unknown

Dear Doodlers,

In order to expand my horizons I like to explore new territory in which to take my death-defying power walks. I have to tell you that, for now, I’ve had to forego my jogging regimen because of my darned knee that I told you about. I need an operation. Makes me wonder. Why couldn’t I just scope the thing myself? After all, I remember listening on the radio when the Amazing Mr. Noid performed dental surgery upon himself. It’s something I must carefully consider.

The other day Rick and I were joined by Lovelyn for lunch at the City Centre food court. Lovelyn, an air hostess for Gulf Air, is of Indian origins (her parents live in Kuwait) but now claims Australian citizenship. But I doubted that claim. So I asked her, “Just what’s the best way to go about tying me kangaroo down, Sport?” She looked at me blankly. So I asked her, “How many waltzes could a wallaby waltz if wallabies waltzed with walrusesabees?” More blank stare.

“By golly,” I thought to myself, “she IS from Australia. “Dumb as a post.” Until then I hadn’t realized that émigré Aussies had somehow managed to get the Penitentiary Mentality gene, which is the birthright of all natural citizens from Down Under. Do you think it could be the strong gravitational pull? I mean, it has to take a lot of effort just to keep from losing your toehold and falling down into space. Just take a look at a globe.

At any rate, it transpired that she too is something of a walker. She lives in Juffair, near the American military base, and told us that the day before she’d walked across the big bridge that goes to Hedd. That’s the same bridge I drive over when I go to Amwaj Island. But I didn’t realize it had an adjacent walkway. But it does, she said, and so I decided to try it out. I also like to call Lovelyn “LoveLAND,” because it irritates her.

I parked the next day in Juffair and started walking in the direction of the bridge. Juffair reminds me a lot of Abu Dhabi when we’d lived there in the ‘80s. Lot of new buildings and apartments going up, some paved roads but many dirt roads. Quite a bit of open space. In Abu Dhabi we could look from our rear balcony and often see both large bulls and camels meandering through a neighborhood, usually on a dirt road. I wonder where they were off to?

But no matter. As I walked along the edges of Juffair, on a paved road, I noticed that about every 50 yards I came to a metal manhole cover and that every one of them said, engraved in the metal, “Foul Sewer.” After passing a good many of them I wondered why I hadn’t come across a “Fair Sewer” or two. Sure a lot of foul territory in Juffair.

But to keep myself from thinking about that, I started paying attention to the names of apartment buildings/complexes. I saw the “Al-Ebrahim Plaza.” There’s the “Majestic.” Uh-oh, that one’s named “Mal Plaza.” Mal means “bad” in both Spanish and French. Not a good omen. I came across the “Oasis 2” and wondered if there was an Oasis 1. Doubtful.

Next I came across “Matrook Stoot.” That’s an extremely ugly name. Even if it does rhyme. But the “Venice Villas” looked and sounded nice. I saw the “Elite 5” and wondered if that had housed the Jacksons when they came to Bahrain. Michael spent a good bit of time here, you know.

Now I was approaching the onset of the bridge incline and a tall building nearest it proclaimed itself to be the “100 Residences Tower.” In order to occupy my mind as I started up the slope, I decided to challenge myself to see if I could solve for X. In a nutshell, could I somehow, against long odds, calculate exactly how many apartments there were in that building? A daunting task, but I set to it.

I scanned the building, figured 19 or 20 floors. Like you, it had a lot of girth. Also lot of windows, lot of balconies. Probably one floor would house a fitness centre and sauna. I noticed that the builder was a British firm. So in making calculations, I first converted all the inches, feet, and yards over to the metric system; so many centimeters here, so many square metres there, so many millilitres for that, and so many kilowatts for that other.

Another problem to consider was that there would be some 1-bedroom, some 2-bedroom, and some 3-bedroom apartments within the tower. Perhaps maids’ quarters. I calculated and calculated. And then, not even halfway up the bridge, I arrived at a total number, which expressed the volume of the building. I had utilized many mathematical theorems (including onagers and complex square roots) to get to this point. The number was immense: 22, 873,202 gurgabytes.

So now it was time to capitalize on a trick that I know. When doing extremely difficult mathematical problems I had learned that it was both helpful and expedient to translate the number from something abstract into something concrete. Something you can see. In my case, elephants.

Fortunately, I know the exact size of elephants and so began to form my mental picture of how many elephants could be housed within the structure. (Stacked comfortably atop each other and allowing for floor divisions.) But should you try this, be careful! It is of utmost importance that the elephants that you visualize must not have their trunks extended. No. The trunks must hang down, so as to be perfectly perpendicular to the equator.

I divided the vast number of metric units that I had accumulated by the number of elephants at which my mind’s eye gazed. I had done it! I now knew the exact number of apartments in the tower: there are thirty-two.

Having arrived successfully at this knowledge put me in such a good mood that I felt like whistling. But I couldn’t. Because I had a persimmon in my mouth. Up ahead, at the height of the bridge I could see fishermen.

And tomorrow or the next day I’ll tell you about them and the rest of my walk across the bridge and back. Some harrowing stuff.

But before I sign off, let me tell you that we played a weak Ettihad team two nites ago. True to our character, we played yo-yo ball. Up for a while, down for a while. We’d go up 20 then, oops!, down to ten. Back up 21, ouch!, ten again. We’re the masters of this genre. We ended up winning by maybe eighteen.

Yours,
Solver of Riddles