Frank and Ernest by Thaves for January 06, 2024

So far, 5-0. Now to keep up the perfect record.

Take heart. If that’s the half-life, you’ve only lost the AM portion of your resolution. 6 days from now you’ll still have 6 PM to midnight, then 9 to midnight, and so on. You should make it most of the way to July before you’re down to only minutes left.

Once that’s out of the way, you can get on with enjoying the year!

Half-life of six days AND sprinkles!

Think of donuts as miniature cyclotrons.

Half-life would probably better apply to several/many resolutions. For instance: If you had made 8 resolutions, after one half-life (in this case 6 days) about half (around 4) would have been broken and half (4) would still be alive (left unbroken). After another half-life (another 6 days or 12 total) about half of those 4 left unbroken would have been broken leaving 2 still be alive (unbroken). After yet another half-life (6 or 18 days total) about half of those 2 left would have been broken leaving only 1 still alive. There would be a 50-50 chance of the remaining resolution lasting another 6 days. It is probable that none would survive past a month (30 days).

Half-lives involve (only) probabilities. Numbers broken or surviving could be more or less than predicted/expected. For instance: If after one half-life 6 were left, it would be expected that about half of those (3) would survive the next half-life. That could extend survival of at least 1 (to maybe even over a month).

Or if only 2 survived the first half-life, it’s quite possible that neither of those would survive the next half-life – all the resolutions could be broken within 12 days (or even less).

The unrecorded record probably is something like a minute or less.

It took you 6 days? Pfft! Slackers. (⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)

That’s because you made the wrong resolution. It should have been to eat more donuts.

Frank’s other resolution was to support small businesses…!