Recent content by silkentouch

or for a quick and dirty visualization, consider a gazillion doors, with money behind just 1 of them. You choose 1 door, say the millionth door knowing fully well that its an exercise in futility. Then the host starts opening all doors starting for door 1, keeps going, leaves the door you...

I think 'enlightenment' comes from discovering something on your own, not necessarily in higher math. I still vividly remember the happiness I got from finding a formula for number of diagonals of a polygon, or the area of a quarter sphere, many many years ago. And just recently I discovered...

Hi Joe, Here is a dirty answer: For a uniform distribution, say you bid 300. If the cost is over 300, you make or lose nothing. If the cost is less than 200 (probability 2/10), you lose an amount equally distributed over 0-300. If the cost is between 200-300 (probability 1/10), you make an...

Ryan, That is true if the distribution is uniform. For non-uniform distribution, a positive bid may make sense. e.g. assume the distribution from [0,1000] to be a uniform 'near exhaustive' distribution over [750,1000]. Then a bid of 1000 would be the best bid....

Andy, did you get the first question right? How can I place a bid if I don't understand the distribution of the values? e.g. If I bid say 600, I make money if the chest is valued over 400 and less than 600, and lose money if the chest if valued under 400. But as per your question, I do not...

Depends on the overall feel of the interview. I generally outline the steps, but sometimes, if I can get an answer really really quickly...I don't outline the steps. I have had an interviewer stop mid-way and ask me, how did I do it so quickly. Part of the magic is not telling up front how the...

Andy, There is a much more intuitive way of doing this problem: As Prasad pointed out, 35^2 = 1225 and 40^2 = 1600. 1420 is almost exactly between these two. We know that distance between two consecutive squares increases as numbers grow. Therefore, 1420 is closer to square of 38 instead of...

I see that Ramnik has already touched this point, but can I also re-emphasize the importance of incorporating VaR in your final analysis. 'Return only' rankings encourage unrealistic risk taking, especially by candidates with a weak algorithm towards the end of the trading period. I haven't...

lol...thanks atreides. This is a remarkable observation! I just realized that the author of the blog is a good friend of mine (and my former classmate)!!! I am in touch with him on my application, just didn't know that he also had a blog :) Any views on the profile itself?

Thanks Andy, Alain and others for your helpful posts....could I please request for a quick evaluation of my profile as well? Education: B. Tech Comp Sci (GPA: 8/10) from a top 10 univ in India in 2004, MBA from the top B-school in India (2.9/4) in 2006 3+ years working as an analyst/associate...

Hi! A big hello to the family.... For a brief profile: From a computer Science student (with a 3.2) as an undergrad...went to a reasonably high ranked MBA school in 2004, got a <3 gpa :wall, graduated in 2006 and have been working for a non-bulge bracket IB in Asia as an investment banker...