Oink

I think you're creating a false duality by only counting the beans. They have other qualities, like taste, texture and of course social implications of consumption. You maths people only see the world one way, that Descartes fellow has a lot to answer for.

dbd33

Around here beans are refried, the resultant paste must contain more beans per cubic inch than the whole, or nearly whole, offerings from Heinz. I'd be interested to compare but need a method for reconstituting the refried beans, would sculpting be adequate?

flashman

Are'nt there any Accountants (Bean Counters) reading this forum ?

Novocastrian

Actually counting the beans, is the work of a 7 year old, who I'm pleased to see hasn't yet accomplished the task.

This is because I've just figured out the error in my result. The problem is that the prolate spheroid beans can't pack as efficiently as spheres. Doh.

Back in 1921 there was a paper on this topic concerned with X-ray powder crystallography, which I remember reading at the time. Here's the link....

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v17/i5/p571_1

Basically, the close packed spheroids align so as to occupy a volume with average spacings equal to approximately twice their minor diameter times 1.5 their major diameter.

This means that the effective volume occupied by each bean, compared to their physical volume needs to be increased by 2x2x1.5 = 6. So my earlier, extremely naive, estimate needs to be appropriately reduced from 4009 to 668.

And that's gotta be right.

You can open that tin now and confirm my triumph of intellect over BE junk food.


Edit: Oh, and in passing, may I rubbish the analogies to Schroedinger's Cat?

This issue there is whether the cat is alive or dead, not whether the cat is still in there.

JamesM

I have an old university accomplice who is the Financial Controller for Heinz near Manchester. A Bean Counter in every sense......

Therefore I am declaring myself out of the competition due to having the availability of inside knowledge.

Greenhill

My bad, I should have posted the other day that the lunchtime phrase "Daddy, I'm hungry" caused an event that meant the bean tin was opened and the contents were soon after consumed.

All is not lost though, prior to eating, I spread the beans out on three plates and photographed them. I also took a photo of the inside of the can as there was a long-ways half bean stuck in the bottom of it.

I'll post them up so we can all count them to ensure an accurate total.

Having eaten a plate of them, lucky me (that I had some rantidine in the cupboard ready for the aftermath of such an adventure), I suspect your new estimate of 668 is probably very close.

I'll upload the pics from the camera after I gave the beef curry a big stir.

Oh, I also believe "prolate spheroid" is not really a very accurate mathematical description of the objects that came out of the tin. More like the offspring of Mrs. Prolate Spheroid and Mr. Amorphous Blob-Randomly-Divided. If there's specific mathematic terminology to describe such an object I, as well as at least one other forum member, will be well-impressed.

Novocastrian

668, right?

Novocastrian

I will not comment at this time on the ill-advisability of involving 7 year olds in serious scientific investigations.


Oh joy!

Goes without saying, innit?

Cheap beans. Get a proper UK tin.

JamesM

If I'm honest with you all I think there has been an over site in how you are all approaching the problem.

The configuration of the sophisticated manufacturing equipment at Heinz will no doubt work with weight of beans rather than number and therefore there is likely to be a deviation in results as it is unlikely that every baked bean is the same size.

Therefore when people are calculating we need to really be thinking mode rather than mean and also attention needs to be paid to deviation.

In conclusion what I am trying to say is that the only way this contest can be bought to a fair conclusion is if Greenhills seven year old counts the beans in multiple tins????

Some one is definitely going to be demanding more pocket money!

Novocastrian

God! Now you want error bars?????

JamesM

The formulas being applied need some reworking.

I am just too hung over to do it.

Novocastrian

BTW, when this issue has bean resolved (DYSWIDT?), we can move on to the more interesting and more fundamental question of "How many beans can fit on the head of an Angel?"

An issue which cannot be addressed by the prosaic and tedious technique of mere counting.

<If it becomes necessary to more closely define the country of residence of the angel, let's start with the canadian ones>

Greenhill

Here's a photo of the opened can. Looks like beanless soup. There might be time to have another guess/make another calculation before I post the evidence?

Greenhill

So how many beans are in a tin? Great question!

Longways half-bean in emptied can:



"Plate 1 (DSC02101)"



"Plate 2 (DSC02102)"



"Plate 3 (DSC02103)"

Alan2005

I was waiting for the first fart joke. I didn't think it would be so high brow.