The Muffin Theory

[Richi]

Perhaps it does not qualify to be a theory, but it's something nonetheless. I wrote it a while ago one random morning, while enjoying a muffin for breakfast. Enjoy...




Let’s begin. Almost all of us, at one point in our lives, have eaten a muffin. We either buy one, or receive it, or make them ourselves. But whenever we choose one, we tend to subconsciously look for one with the most chocolate chips. Chocolate chips are the highlight of the muffin, without them, it would be quite plain. But there are never quite enough in the muffin. Most people could safely say they would have preferred to have a few more chocolate chips in their muffin, to make the muffin more enjoyable. But not many people ever get too many chocolate chips in their muffin.

Now, to get to the heart of the matter. When we do look at a certain selection of muffins, we assess which is the optimal muffin with the highest abundance of chocolate chips. We do this because we know there is rarely too many chocolate chips, therefore there is usually not enough chocolate chips. But when we look at one particular muffin, we only see the top portion of the muffin. Essentially, only one-sixth of the muffin, if it were a cube, because the cylindrical side and bottom of the muffin is covered in a wrapper. Furthermore, we disregard the inside of the muffin because we simply have no way to determine the quantity of chocolate chips in that portion of the muffin, until we un-wrap and begin to consume it.

Let’s continue. We base the muffin we choose merely on the chocolate chip count on the top of the muffin, a substantially small amount of information. Then, we assume that the muffin we have chosen has more chocolate chips then the other muffins. If we look at the manufacturing process of a muffin, we notice that chocolate chips are mixed into the other components of the muffins randomly. Therefore, the chocolate chip positioning throughout any single muffin is quite random.

To conclude, in all possibility, any muffin that has more chocolate chips on the top portion of its surface area is inclined to have less chocolate chips throughout the rest of it. The question should not be “which muffin has more chocolate chips”, but rather, “where would I like the chocolate chips in my muffin to be situated”. Therefore, the search for the muffin with the most chocolate chips is, in reality, a superficial search, as no muffin has more chocolate chips than any other muffin. If we could, we would look at the bigger picture, possibly the inside portion of the muffin, but since we cannot, we simply judge the quantity of chocolate chips by what we see at first glance. Is this the best way to choose your muffin? Or does it really not matter, because we have no way of knowing which muffin has more chocolate chips until we thoroughly examine every morsel of the chosen muffin, and then decide if the chosen muffin was the optimal choice.

[Salvinorin A]

An interesting theory indeed...but so many questions!

What are we to do when the muffin is behind glass? Impossible to search and respect every morsel of the muffin. But we want the muffin. It's just an educated decision. We want the best for our hard earned money. Are we as a society forced into making such superficial decisions in order satisfy our own selfish cravings?

And now for the deeeeep philosophy..

What if they're blueberry muffins!? No chocolate, no reward. Do we really want blueberries in the first place? What if they're out of chocolate chip? We are helpless!

What about the chocolate muffins in general! Aha, now there's a way to avoid any problems. Chocolate uniformity! Maybe the black muffins are the chosen ones.

And lastly, Carbs! What if you don't eat muffins in the first place because they go straight to your ass. Are these the inept ones? Can one truly reject the muffin and settle for Grapefruit? is this a decent form of life. How many pastries do we need to satisfy our gluttonous pleasures?





yeah I lost my train of thought after about the second line of this post....I'm going to go get a muffin.

Sal-A

[x cynic x]

I would like just anough chocolate chips so that I could still taste the bread of the muffin. Too much chocolate and there's no reason for the muffin. I do not see the muffin as a simple medium for the chocolate chips, I see the chocolate chips as a slight enhancement to the flavor of the muffin. Impalpability here comes from the fact that preferences vary.

[Richi]

Somehow someone always ends up mentioning blueberry muffins as an alternative to the chocolate ones. Whatever your inclination, a plain muffin would be just that.

I like the idea of a chocolate muffin though - an overabundance of what would otherwise be a feature. Too much of a good thing?

Great comments though...

[criss]

What the fuck - is this the most brilliantly subtle metaphor of all time and SWIM is just too high to read into it? ;D

Or are you all mad except meeeeeeee!

Funny either way ^^

[Euthanatos93420]

Swim like banana muffins. If you like chocolate chips so damn much, make your own muffins and put more in. Or wait....just eat chocolate chips and SKIP the FUCKING MUFFIN?!

Reputation Comments on this post:

;)

[Richi]

Originally Posted by Euthanatos93420

Swim like banana muffins. If you like chocolate chips so damn much, make your own muffins and put more in. Or wait....just eat chocolate chips and SKIP the FUCKING MUFFIN?!

I guess I could... Actually, I think I will.

[Ilsa]

whew! glad that got figured out....i think muffins fuel richi's FAQ contributions....we can't let those run out

[Dickon]

In so far as chocolate chips are the desired object, I have to say the simplistic "oohhh look, lots of chips on the outside" approach is pretty much optimal in getting the most chips.

Let's understand why!!!

To a first order of approximation the chips in a muffin are distributed independently, to slightly abuse language. Think of tossing a coin. If you throw 10 heads in a row and know you have 90 more (unseen!) throws to go, the expected total number of heads (think chips!!) is 55, 10+the expected 45 heads out of the 90 remaining throws. Likewise if you throw 10 tails, you can expect to get only 45 heads. The previous coin tosses do not effect the outcomes of the yet-to-be-done tosses.

Assuming the muffins are made to a fixed recipe (we might as well assume that all cows are spherical too, because we like assuming all kinds of crazy shit!) then an increase in chips in one portion of the dough will lead to a decrease in chips elsewhere, but if the size of the dough mixture is large enough and the portion being looked at small enough this effect will be negligible. If the recipe was constituted for a single muffin, Richi, your theory would be correct. Lots of chips on the surface would imply fewer chips inside, and an uneven distribution of chips.

However I imagine a big batch of dough is made up for many muffins, and so the increase in chips in the visible portion of one muffin will not, to a first degree approximation, affect the distribution of chips in the rest of the batch, including the unseen portion of the muffin that might look so tempting because of all those visible chips.

So there you have it! Doughnuts anyone?

Dickon

[emoduckie]

Thanks Dickon!
For a second there I thought I was going to have to explain all that by myself!

[Nycholai]

Well really. Just because there are more chocolate chips in the top portion doesn't mean there will be less in the middle. The amount of chips in the batch is set, not the amount in each muffin.

[Slater]

Lol. SWIMM examined very good all the bost while beeng high and comed to a conclusion: the amount of cholotate chips in the muffin is totaly random, it doesn't matter if it has mode chocolate chips at the outside cause the amount in of chocolate chips in a muffin is not fixed, but the amount of chocolate chips in a big set of muffins that is beeng made in the same time is and you also don't know what that fixed amount is. For example there are 50 muffins made in the same time and u see that 1/3 of them have more chocolate chips on the outside, you can not know if the chocolate chips usualy cover 1/3 or 2/3 of the total muffins and don't know how many were already selled and as I said before, the amount of chocolate chips on the outside doese not meen anything.

So the conclusion is that the only way to have more chocolate chips is to eat more muffins.