A friend of mine named Julia was peeling an apple this weekend, and a
question came up... "How many people named Julia are currently in San
Francisco peeling an apple?"  We speculated on an answer based on wild
guesses about what percent of the population is named Julia, and about
how many apples get consumed daily, and how many of those are peeled. 
In the end we had wildly varying opinions.

Since I don't have time to research this myself, I was hoping someone
could come up with a slightly less speculative answer.

Just a thought.  Peeling an apple occurs rarely enough, and takes
little enough time, that I suspect that at "most" points in time[1]
there are zero Julias in San Francisco peeling apples, and that at the
moment under discussion there was but the one you spoke with.

[1] Of course, there's a continuum of points in time, so "most" is
used with the following meaning:  The subset of points in time that a
Julia in SF is peeling an apple has greater (Borel) measure than its
complement. If this footnote makes no sense to you, then ignore it and
the quotation marks above.

In the footnote, I meant lesser measure, not greater measure, sorry.

The answer is Approaching Zero.

(Hey, that's a good title for a book. I wonder if anyone's used it?)

BECAUSE:

A lot of Julias don't eat apples;

And of those that do, they get their Mums, their Cooks or their
Handmaids (or someone) to peel them;

Or they just eat them unpeeled; 

Or they're away somewhere;

Or, like Julia Roberts ... 

They are just too busy shopping ...

And, anyway, it wouldn't look very dignified to peel an apple while
you're sitting in Church, or something.

Believe me.

Hi,

Heres my attempt.

people in Sf in daytime	 
1,500,000 http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005Yiw

% of women	
51%	http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-544.pdf

% of women that are julias	
0.28%	http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/note139/note139.html

people that like apples	
30%	http://www.numberofpeoplethatlikeapples.com :)

apple eaters that eat one today	
10%	http://www.numberofpeoplethateatappleseveryday.com :)

apple eaters that peel	
25%	http://www.numberofpeoplethatpeelapples.com :)

daily eaters peeling in this 5min period	
0.35%	5/(60*24)

Number of julias peeling apple in SF now therefore 
= 0.06	(not counting your friend)

looking at it another way - about one an hour - so you need to be
lucky for it to be more than 1.

- Delard

Delard ...

Not bad! In fact, VERY GOOD!

But you have assumed that all the Julias are of an age where they are
allowed to peel apples.

So, you've got to exclude the young babes in arms and the old babes in
their dotage.

Also peeling an apple takes less than 2 minures, not 5 minutes.

So back to the drawing board!

Probono is wrong to criticise Delard based on the fact that some
Julias do not peel their own apples.  This should on average be
cancelled out by the fact that some Julias peel apples for other
people.

However Delard did make quite a few of his/her figures up, so I'm
going to have a go, using some of Delards info:

Apple production in the USA per year
4,606,000 tons   (http://pss.uvm.edu/PSS221/WEB/Prodstats.pdf)

Fresh consumption of US apples in the USA per year
2,200,000 tons   (same source)

Imports of apple products into the USA per year are primarily juice,
minimal fresh consumption (same source)

Mass of one apple
0.15 kg   (every highschool/undergraduate physics student knows that this is exact)

Therefore, the number of apples eaten in the US per day
= 4*10^7    (2,200,000,000/(0.15*365))

Population of the USA (excluding pigs, which also like apples)
294,017,311  (http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock)

Therefore, the number of apples eaten per person per day in the US
0.1366

Number of apples eaten per day by Julias in SF:
292.7         (using Delard's name/sex/population figures)

Ok, now comes the dodgy stuff.  "What percentage of these are peeled?"
and "How long does it take to peel an apple?"

Peeling percentage is affected by culture/race: 
http://www.angelfire.com/nh/secret/1EastVersusWest.htm
(Julia is not a common Chinese name is it?)
Let's just go with Delard's estimate of 25% unless someone can come up
with something better.

Number of apples peeled by Julias in SF per day
73.2

How long does it take to peel an apple??
I wonder how many Julia's use this device... apparently it only takes 10 seconds!
http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Canning/apple-tool-06.html
But I'd prefer to go with probono's estimate of 2 minutes for most Julia's.

However unlike Delard, I predict that most apples are peeled during
the 16 hours people are typically awake.  And we know that generally
people tend to be awake during similar hours.

Although it is certainly possible that there are occasional sleep-peelers
(http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/01/lt.04.html)

Number of minutes available for peeling
~1000

THEREFORE, Number of Julia's peeling apples in SF at any one time
(excluding your friend)
= 0.1464

Which, amazingly is only double Delard's estimate... and maybe the
difference comes down to me counting the consumption by pigs called
Julia in SF, whereas Delard only counted humans?

Cheers
99of9

Very good. Though I think your assumption that sleep peeling pigs
called Julia are not significant is unjustified. It is quite possible
that a pig/apple farmer in the sf area has trained his whole herd to
peel apples in their sleep (you just can't get them to do it while
awake!). And given that Julia is the favorite name of 13.7% of combo
pig/apple farmers it is quite likely that several Julias are peeling
almost non-stop in shifts.

Thats why I restricted it to humans you see :).

- Delard

this is the best conversation on google answers EVER.

signed,

julianne/julia/julie (yes, all three!) from around san francisco, who
eats her apples unpeeled.

Interesting calculations here, all of which would be skewed if there
were 1 (or more) Julias employed in:
*  baking, particularly of apple pies
*  apple-peeling in a cannery or other factory

Apples aren't widely used in candies (except by Liberty Orchards in
Cashmere, WA), so we'll exclude these guys:
http://www.washingtonapplecountry.com/candies.htm

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Some very serious questions have been raised, and I demand answers.

Firstly, to the questioner alexthegood-ga:
==========================================
It appears you have not provided the most important pieces of
information to aid us with answering your question.  I will summarise
the vital queries that I feel will aid fellow commenters.  Namely:

* Did the incident in question occur while sitting in church?

* Do you regard time as a continuum, or have you invented A New Kind Of Science?

* Which do you think is a better book title: "A new kind of science"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1579550088/104-9065895-0991946?v=glance),
or "Approaching zero"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679409386/104-9065895-0991946?v=glance)?

* Which do you think pigs prefer to read?

* Did the incident in question occur while asleep?

* Does the Julia in question peel a significant number of the 73.2
apples peeled in SF by Julias per day?

* Did you mean to include chinese sleep-peeling pigs called Julia in your question?

* Come to think of it, how about chinese sleep-peeling skunks
(http://www.accs.net/users/whyden/skunks.htm)?


Delard:
=======
* Are you sure the 13.7% of combo pig/apple farmers' pigs that are
called Julia are not in a Union?  They represent quite a large voting
bloc, and most unions have rules against sleep-peeling
(http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/html/healthy_living/sleep/shiftwork.html).

* Is it really ethical for vegetarians to eat apples peeled by a pig? 
Have you accounted for the loss of business the said farmers would
sustain if they used pig-labour in this way?


jhouk:  Julianne/Julia/Julie
============================
* Are you employed in an apple-peeling corporation?

* Without knowing it you have thrown the whole study that humoured you
so much into complete disarray.

* Delard's name statistics assume only one name per person, and only
one name per pig.

* I demand you only choose one name, which is it that I may call you?

* Are you a pig, a human, or a skunk?  (sorry couldn't resist)

* If you are more than one of the above, I demand that you choose only
one species, which is it?

* Do you eat apple candies?

This is a very CLEVER question because Alex The Good has not given us
all the facts and that is not so good.

After accessing Alex's FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act,
I can now reveal that the conversation between the Good Alex and the
Apple-Peeling Julia actually took place at 4 o'clock in the morning.

Alex asked Julia to clean his shoes and instead of getting on with it
as he had every reason to expect, Julia prevaricated and started
peeling an apple.

'For God's sake', screamed Alex, 'Who on earth would want to peel an
apple at this time in the morning?'

Julia peeled her apple in 20 seconds flat and announced, 'I bet
there's somebody right here in San Fran who's doing just that'.

Alex sneered, 'Yeah, but if there is then I bet she's a Julia or a
Juliette or a Julie'.

After Julia had given the apple to her little piggy, she then cleaned Alex's shoes.

So now you know.  

Does that alter the arithmetic?

I, AlexTheGood, posted a question about peeling apples this Sunday,
and while thousands of Julia's nationwide have gone about their
business peeling apples, I have only just now gotten around to
checking my mail.  Let me say that I'm impressed, even awe-struck by
all of your ingenuity, your creativity, and your hysterics.

Thanks to dalard for a good initial attempt, and to probo for a great
commentary in which I get my shoes dirty.  Special super kudos to 99
for lots of good statistics, articles that had me laughing on the
floor, and for my new pet skunk.  You all even managed to avoid all
the ridiculous opportunities for punny cliché?s like How do you
like.... keeps dem doctors away, and a whole bunch of other rotten
spoilers.

Here are some answers from me:

The incident took place not in church, or even in San Francisco, but
one recent Sunday afternoon at a winery somewhere in Northern
California.  We were drunk and happy after a day of wine tasting, and
were being quite loud as we sat down at a picnic table next to a
proper-looking old couple. Our conversation was far more interesting
than theirs, and they were obviously listening to us.
Julia giggled, like she always does, "This is so great! I wish I could
do this every day."
"What are you doing that you couldn't do in San Francisco," her
boyfriend demanded.
"Well, I'm peeling an apple.  Hee hee."  This was true, she WAS
peeling an apple, as was my brother.
"What are you talking about!" scoffed her boyfriend.  "There are
plenty of people who are probably peeling apples in San Francisco this
very moment."
"I bet several of them are named Julia." offered my brother.
"Noooo, it can't be."
I had to pipe in. "OK, well, there are what 2 million or so people in
San Francisco, and if the average person peels an apple once a week
that means there are at least a quarter million peeled a day.  So
that's, let me see, over 2000 every 15 minutes.  It probably takes 15
minutes to peel an apple, if you include getting it out and eating it.
 I'd say there are at least 10 Julia's in San Francisco, peeling an
apple as we speak."
This was followed by much discussion over what it means to peel and
apple, whether getting it out and eating it could be extended to
growing it, how many people are in San Francisco, how popular a name
Julia is, etc.  In the end Julia felt sad, that she wasn't unique and
wished she had a name like AlexTheGood's real name.  The old couple
seemed amused, and eventually the conversation drifted.

But the question remained.  And in an effort to either make Julia feel
more unique, or perhaps give her boyfriend something else to tease her
about, I've posted it here.  Thus far the responses have been better
than I bargained for.

I think that answers most of your questions.  Julia is not Chinese. 
Time seems pretty continuous to me.  Personally, I feel I'd get more
use out of trying to approach zero than a new kind of science... I'm
sure that the existing science has some sort of paradoxical
uncertainties particularly when it relates to time, but all in all, it
seems pretty good for problems such as Julia and apples.

Thanks to everybody for a large amount of nothing

Alex,

42

Phil

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........

So the question behind the question was "how can you make your friend
Julia feel unique?"

Well, that has an altogether different answer:

Tell her to peel skunks instead of apples.  Then she will be truly unique.

The comment from omnivorous-ga on 16 Aug 2004 13:54 PDT, concerning
people who work in factories, etc., is a good one: I should have
thought of that.