This is a bit hard to explain, so bear with me.
You have 100 golf balls in a neat set of rows like an egg crate....10x10 so it's easy to count them and know there is 100. They are suspended 50 or 100 feet off the floor. Whatever.
Below, there is another egg crate-device with 100 spaces, and both egg-crate devices are enclosed by solid walls such that when you dump the 100 balls above, they will all fall into a space below and once again be easily counted. A person who was shown only the balls up high could easily count them, and a person who was only shown the balls on the floor could also easily count them.
So far, the math of all this is very basic and easy.
But, as the balls are falling, and all are in mid-air, it is very difficult to count them. A person seeing the balls only as they are falling would most likely be unable to count them accurately. At best, he could estimate their number, or theoretically invent some very sophisticated counting device that could count the balls. The point is, it's the same number of balls no matter where they are, but only when they are ordered can their number be easily understood.
My question is...I assume there is a name for this phenomenon, probably within the field of mathematics or statistics or?
You have 100 golf balls in a neat set of rows like an egg crate....10x10 so it's easy to count them and know there is 100. They are suspended 50 or 100 feet off the floor. Whatever.
Below, there is another egg crate-device with 100 spaces, and both egg-crate devices are enclosed by solid walls such that when you dump the 100 balls above, they will all fall into a space below and once again be easily counted. A person who was shown only the balls up high could easily count them, and a person who was only shown the balls on the floor could also easily count them.
So far, the math of all this is very basic and easy.
But, as the balls are falling, and all are in mid-air, it is very difficult to count them. A person seeing the balls only as they are falling would most likely be unable to count them accurately. At best, he could estimate their number, or theoretically invent some very sophisticated counting device that could count the balls. The point is, it's the same number of balls no matter where they are, but only when they are ordered can their number be easily understood.
My question is...I assume there is a name for this phenomenon, probably within the field of mathematics or statistics or?