Haircuts
Someone justifies a too-short haircut with sawtooth graphs showing more time spent near optimal length.
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Free for classrooms, worksheets, slides and other non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0, with credit to Ben Orlin.
Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2018-07-23-haircuts/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
A: "Ugh. Why did you get your hair cut so short?" B: "Simple! By cutting it shorter than optimal length, I'm able to achieve greater total attractiveness over the time between haircuts."
[Graph: hair length vs. time, sawtooth; bands "passable / decent / optimal"] B: "See, if I cut my hair to optimal length, it soon grows too long."
[Second graph, starting lower] B: "Cutting it shorter than optimal yields better results!"
A: "Or you could cut your hair more than once every 18 months..." B: "Whoa, whoa! You're overthinking this."