So I wanna check my math here and see if I'm overlooking something. I was re-watching Futurama, and thinking about Fry's genetics.
(And I know DNA doesn't actually work like this and inheriting chromosomes is more complicated, etc etc.)
But in a super-simplified way, I started thinking that parts of Fry's genetics just came from nowhere, since he himself was 25% of his ancestors.
But then I thought, so he gets 50% of his DNA from his Mom, 25% from his paternal grandmother, and of the remaining 25%, 50% of THAT is his Mom, 25% of THAT is his grandma, and so on.
And that's just a geometric series. Like for his Mom's contribution, it'd be .5 + .5(.25) + .5(.25^2) ... .5(.25^n) And for his grandma it would be .25(.25^n)
And those series converge at 2/3 and 1/3 respectively. So in this way-too-simplified model of genetics, Fry gets two thirds of his DNA from his Mom's side, one third from his Grandma, and that's it. Is that accurate, as far as it goes?
(And I know DNA doesn't actually work like this and inheriting chromosomes is more complicated, etc etc.)
But in a super-simplified way, I started thinking that parts of Fry's genetics just came from nowhere, since he himself was 25% of his ancestors.
But then I thought, so he gets 50% of his DNA from his Mom, 25% from his paternal grandmother, and of the remaining 25%, 50% of THAT is his Mom, 25% of THAT is his grandma, and so on.
And that's just a geometric series. Like for his Mom's contribution, it'd be .5 + .5(.25) + .5(.25^2) ... .5(.25^n) And for his grandma it would be .25(.25^n)
And those series converge at 2/3 and 1/3 respectively. So in this way-too-simplified model of genetics, Fry gets two thirds of his DNA from his Mom's side, one third from his Grandma, and that's it. Is that accurate, as far as it goes?
