Taxicab Metric of a Different Kind

SummaryImagine being tasked with measuring the distance between two points in a city, but you can only use a taxicab’s odometer which displays only whole-number values (the integer part) of its distance traveled so far—such is the display of modern digital measuring devices. This coarse measurement...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The College mathematics journal 2024-09, Vol.55 (4), p.328-335
Main Author: Jones, Brian D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied mathematics
Combinatorial analysis
Display devices
Measuring instruments
Odometers
Taxicabs
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:SummaryImagine being tasked with measuring the distance between two points in a city, but you can only use a taxicab’s odometer which displays only whole-number values (the integer part) of its distance traveled so far—such is the display of modern digital measuring devices. This coarse measurement between two points might be called, tongue in cheek, a taxicab metric, but clearly of a different sort from the taxicab metric on a discrete grid that we encounter in combinatorics. We will explore how we might apply probability to our taxicab’s inherent randomness, and along with limit theorems, indeed measure arbitrary distances with any desired accuracy.
ISSN:0746-8342
1931-1346
DOI:10.1080/07468342.2023.2266314