... Seriously?

I'm reading my stats book, and dozing off once in a while. I read over a problem and thought, ummm, what? It reads:

"You are studying flaws in the painted finish of refrigerators made by your firm. Dimples and paint sags are two kinds of surface flaw. Not all refrigerators have the same number of dimples: many have none, some have one, some two , and so on. You ask for the average number of imperfections on a refrigerator. The inspectors report finding an average of 0.7 dimples and 1.4 sags per refrigerator. How many total imperfections of both kinds are there on a refrigerator?"

... seriously? I dont know whats more lame.. this guys job.. or the fact that I'm reading about it. Made up or not, that SUCKS.

So does reading about all of this probability mumbojumbo. Who does this for a life?


_________edit.

"The French naturalist Count Buffon tossed a coin 4040 times. Result: 2048 heads, or proportion 2048/4040=0.5069 for heads.

Around 1900, the English statistician Karl Pearson heroically tossed a coin 24,0000 times. Result: 12,012 heads, a proportion of 0.5005."

... heroically? I did a double-take because there was no way that I had read that right.
Did he save a country? Win a war? Catch a terrorist? Cure a disease?
NO. He threw a coin. 24,000 times. For what? To prove that the more times an event occurs, the closer it gets to a proportion. I hope throwing that coin 24,000 was worth it all so he could be quoted in a textbook for "proving" something.
What an idiot.
I guess my question to "who does this" has been answered.



And the question of the night.. "seriously?" continues..