(no subject)
Does anyone know how Sonic came up with 168,894 drink combinations for their new advertising campaign? I couldn't figure it out so I sent this email to their PR department:
To whom it may concern,
My name is Taylor Smith. I am a mathematics major in Louisiana. I have a question about your current advertising campaign. From what I can figure, there are WAY more combinations of drinks than 168,894. I was wondering if you knew how this number was reached.
On www.maketjdrink.com, there are 50 possible ingredients that can be added. If any combination of these can be a drink, than there are 2 to the 50th power combinations. This equals 1,125,899,906,842,624 combinations. Based on the site however, TJ's drink uses 5 ingredients. Using this idea, there are 2,118,760 unique ways to combine 5 ingredients chosen from 50. Now, if we supposed that we could only choose 1 drink(coke, dr. pepper, etc.) , and then choose the add-ins(cherry, lime, strawberries, etc) then there would be 1,146,880 combinations. If we were restricted to one drink and then 4 addins, the total combinations would be 560.
I am completely at a loss as to how 168,894 combinations can be the actual number of drink combinations that sonic offers. I believe the number to be much much higher. I would greatly appreciate any information on this subject.
Thanks a lot,
Taylor Smith
While I'm waiting on a responce, can anyone else shed any light on this mystery?