I look forward to reading Dr.s Julian Chen, Scott Kominers
and Robert Sinnott's paper "Walk Versus Wait: The Lazy
Mathematician Wins" in full.

However some assumptions appear to arise from the scant
coverage I've seen so far which are in no wise universal.

The formula they outline seems to work fine in a grid-based
city where one direct route links two locations near bus stops.

In hub-based, also known as spider-web, logistical operations,
however, distance as the crow flies does not automatically
translate into a short number of bus stops.

Similarly, the title of the paper seems somewhat misleading.
The lazy mathematician actually loses. The lazy person wins.
The proactive mathematician would take advantage of the
repiratory and cardio-vascular exercise as well as the greater
thinking time to spend the walk working out the maths in both
thei conscious and subconscious minds. The lazy mathematician
inhales the same amount of CO and suchlike, more perhaps
for being in the wake of the fumes, as well as so much more
second hand respiratorate, never mind closing down their
mind to spontaneous, serendipitous stimuli by operating a
closed, almost totally snythetic and highly linear environment
characterised by a small number of codified social scriptings.

Getting away from the brain for a moment, in spiderweb
route based systems the total journey time often can be
shortened by dint of more and more buses joining routes
on a main tributary into the urban centre, never mind by
way of bridleways, snickets, towpaths, ginnels, alleys,
footpaths, and so forth.

For example a 7 minute walk from a bus stop with a route
frequency of 1 per hour can end up 4 stops away at a far
better served bus stop with a route frequency of at least
one every ten minutes. A further 3 stops from this can still
be got to by bus in about 10 minutes, total.

As I said, I look forward to reading the paper in its entirety
but it is still not unkown for a 45 minute walk - 6 or 7 kM -
to take less time than the equivalent bus rides, even when
only one bus need be caught.

A half hour walk can still take, on average, including waiting
times, a good hour less than the equivalent bus journeys
when a connection need be made via a spiderweb logistic
framework.

What is even more disconcerting is that the laziest of all
possible mathematicians who use the distances involved
to overlap Wi-Fi hotspots for a CMC-meeting or teleconference,
maybe even via broadband, not only gets their coffee to their
taste but also has access to far more substantial potential
reference resources than can be practicably carried by any
method allowed in the supposed received parameters of
the paper as reported. indeed, far more can be carried by
cycle, and rollerskates would win hands down.

But just watch the uptake of campus shuttles go through
the roof now!

G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2008 SIPSTON
--