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If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

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Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#31

Post by zucker42 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #13
thom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that _is_ the conceit here. The ‘right’ answer is that all manhole covers are round because a round cover can’t fall into the hole.

I'm fairly certain a square manhole cover with a sufficient perimeter would still have no chance of falling into a hole, depending on the diameter of said hole.

It explains in the joke how it's possible to fit a square cover into a slightly smaller square hole. The easiest way is to position the cover vertically and across the diagonal. The lip that the square cover rests on would have to be impractically large to fully prevent the cover from fitting into the hole.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#32

Post by 13of40 »

zepolen wrote: post #18
dudul wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so pissed at these stupid questions during interviews that now I start doing that. The last one was "how many tennis balls could you fit in the Empire State Building?". I spent maybe 10 minutes asking idiotic "clarifying" questions before the interviewer realized I was messing with him (e.g. "can I use any color for the balls?" "Do I have a crew to help me?" "Can I try to crush them?" etc). He got pretty upset ye…

So what's not serious about that question assuming it was for a programming position?

The answer to that question is the volume of the building minus some factor (let's say 40%) for other stuff like walls and floors, etc. times the number of tennis balls you can fit in a given space, like a cubic meter. Basically...

x * y * z * 0.6 * n

If you could quickly express it like that, despite not actually coming up with a number, you would probably pass. To me, being able to estimate the scope of things before launching into writing code is a valuable skill, but there's something about the quirkiness(?) of how the question is presented that's off-putting to some people. But on the other hand, maybe that's by design, and those people are the ones being selected out?

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#33

Post by kragen »

beached_whale wrote: post #29
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly certain a square manhole cover with a sufficient perimeter would still have no chance of falling into a hole, depending on the diameter of said hole.

If you provide a sufficient lip on the hole such that the minimum side is larger than any of the four diagonals it would work.

Right, but this makes the area of the cover twice the area of the hole, and the cover twice as heavy as it would need to be if it were round. As Feynman pointed out, even round covers are already pretty heavy—I injured my wrist (ligaments?) from the tension of lifting one in my teens.

However, if this were the only consideration, you could get a wider-diameter manhole with a smaller cover by making it in the form of an equilateral triangle, as evidently Nashua, NH, does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhole_cover#Other. Indeed, you don't need to stop there; if you curve the sides of the triangle in toward the center, you can get a manhole with an even smaller surface area for a given diameter, although at some point the extra "diameter" will be too curved to be useful.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#34

Post by MathYouF »

beached_whale wrote: post #29
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly certain a square manhole cover with a sufficient perimeter would still have no chance of falling into a hole, depending on the diameter of said hole.

If you provide a sufficient lip on the hole such that the minimum side is larger than any of the four diagonals it would work.

Indeed, though to do it this way would be very wasteful of resources as the ratio of the manhole size to the size of the cover wouldn't be maximized. The cover would be needlessly covering a lip whose large size only exists because of the poor choice of shape.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#35

Post by jimmaswell »

13of40 wrote: post #14
danbrooks wrote: post #2

What an amazing ending! :)

When I worked there in the early 2000's I had a friend of a friend whose fiancée graduated with a bachelor's degree in either CS or EE and applied for a developer position. Somehow, and I struggle to understand the mechanics of this because engineering was highly compartmentalized away from the "business" parts of the business, they managed to turn her down for an engineering role and got her a job in marketing. Also…

Does anything beat just pressing the buttons in order?

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#36

Post by watwut »

thom wrote: post #8
cableshaft wrote: post #3

I was expecting something a little different, where they passed on him because he didn't give the 'right' answer (what the interviewer had preconceived and/or looked up online).

Well, that _is_ the conceit here. The ‘right’ answer is that all manhole covers are round because a round cover can’t fall into the hole.

Many manholes are in fact squared. So the premise itself is wrong.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#38

Post by ThePadawan »

cacois wrote: post #30
ThePadawan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I get the punchline. Could someone explain?

You were supposed to expect them to fail his interview because he didn't give the "right" answer (manhole covers are round so they can't fall in the hole). Instead, he completely disagreed with the "right" answer, but did so in a way that was incredibly convincing. So, they decided his primary value was not in his intellect (leading him to a job in engineering), but in his ability to convince people of things (leadin…

I did follow the "intended" vs. "right" subtext right until the punchline.

I also at no point got the impression that this fictional Feynman was very convincing, charming or anything like that. Just a bit of a talky wise-ass, really. Obviously he knows his stuff, but he's not direct enough to just say that outright, he tries to lord his intellect over the interviewer.

So I really wasn't sure what the punchline ("let's hire you in marketing") was all about. Is the interviewer saying this guy is a bad engineer since he doesn't get to the point? That he's a good marketer because he can talk lots and lots of bullshit?

Is the implication that being offered a position in marketing would be better than in engineering? It's definitely not what the candidate came in for, and the interviewer also doesn't mention if they would hire him for engineering, just for marketing.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#39

Post by mhh__ »

jmgrosen wrote: post #16

One would hope Microsoft wouldn't hire him due to his long history of rampant sexism, but, being realistic, they would not likely care.

You're being downvoted, but I do think it's an important thing to mention as we tend to worship feynman, which is OK, but I would hate for it to lead for anyone to act like he could be around women.
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