Prime Numbers of Sausages
Mar. 14th, 2010 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueDear Quorn company.
And indeed, any other sausage manufacturer to packages their sausages in multiples of 5.
5 is a prime number. Primes have this property of being only divisible by themselves or 1. That's kind of a useful sort of a property - it means primes have this sort of 'chunkiness' because you can't cut them into smaller slices.
But it's also an utterly useless quantity to sell food in. I mean, 5 sausages, for example. Because this very indivisible nature of 5, means you always have some left over in your sausages, unless you're either serving one person with 5 sausages (which is too many really) or 5 people with 1 sausage each. Which isn't really enough. Most times sausages are served, 2-3 are eaten per person. But that's ok, because if I had that many people to feed with sausages, buying two packs works just as well.
Buy two packs, and you get 10 sausages, which is also a not very helpful sort of a number - because that doesn't divide by 2, 3 or 4 either.
Other sausage manufacturers seem to have figured this out - you see 4s, 6s or very occasionally 8s.
6 is a really good number to use, because you can divide by 1,2, 3 and 6. Double the quantity to get 12, and you can divide by 4 as well.
4 is ok, for much the same reason - 3 packs get me 12, and that's a nice number to divide up.
So Quorn company. Would you please start selling 6 sausages at once?
And indeed, any other sausage manufacturer to packages their sausages in multiples of 5.
5 is a prime number. Primes have this property of being only divisible by themselves or 1. That's kind of a useful sort of a property - it means primes have this sort of 'chunkiness' because you can't cut them into smaller slices.
But it's also an utterly useless quantity to sell food in. I mean, 5 sausages, for example. Because this very indivisible nature of 5, means you always have some left over in your sausages, unless you're either serving one person with 5 sausages (which is too many really) or 5 people with 1 sausage each. Which isn't really enough. Most times sausages are served, 2-3 are eaten per person. But that's ok, because if I had that many people to feed with sausages, buying two packs works just as well.
Buy two packs, and you get 10 sausages, which is also a not very helpful sort of a number - because that doesn't divide by 2, 3 or 4 either.
Other sausage manufacturers seem to have figured this out - you see 4s, 6s or very occasionally 8s.
6 is a really good number to use, because you can divide by 1,2, 3 and 6. Double the quantity to get 12, and you can divide by 4 as well.
4 is ok, for much the same reason - 3 packs get me 12, and that's a nice number to divide up.
So Quorn company. Would you please start selling 6 sausages at once?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 12:37 pm (UTC)But you get 5 sausages each then, which is too many.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 09:33 pm (UTC)May I introduce you to the concept of the table knife, which permits the purchaser of the 5-pack of Quorn sausages to divide said sausages into non-integer numbers? I recommend a division into 2.5 sausages per person if serving two people. For three people, buy a second packet and enjoy 3.33 sausages each.