Wednesday, May 23, 2007

how long is good enough?

How long is good enough to judge a person? How much time is required to know a person completely?

Let me give some background before i start to discuss about it. In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia woolf tells the life of a person for one day and she says that one day is enough to know a person completely. Sure enough, one day is a good long period. People also say that you can judge a person by the kind of shoes he wears, the way he drives his car etc. Each has his own philosophies. But then is one minute enough? 1 hour enough?

I know that it is a subjective question, but it has got a good mathematical angle to it.
Let x be the time taken to know a person y%. Then i have to choose x and y such that y/x is maximum. However an error should be involved. Lets say if x is one day then it is quite possible that if the person is having an off-day like say he got fired, or met an accident, then his stress level will be high. Again this error is also subjective in nature.

But among all subjectiveness, i hereby propose an axiom, that for each person there exists x and y such that y/x is maximum. The timing of x may differ, but i am talking about the existential minimum value of x , where x is less than or equal to the life span of the person.