Brute Force Guessing

[littleredhairedgirl]

I have a spreadsheet set up with a series of numbers
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pQbZNUfZNpHxYjgywdJQjag

This represents the number of times I've observed (over 64 choices)
someone choosing a Large/Yellow or a Medium/White and so on.

If I use a brute force, I can kinda guess the outcome if there were 36
people or 100.
I do this by dividing the real individual choices by the total of all
choices and then multiple that by a target. Using the round function I
get whole numbers
=round(((B3/$G$5)*$F$10),0)

But you can see that I don't get exact number

Any Ideas. I wanna do this in Excel, but a description of the real
math behind it would be wonderful.


Thanks,
Diana
http://people.tribe.net/littleredhairedgirl

 

[Bernard Liengme]

By "exact" you mean a whole number or integer?
There is no way this can always be the case
Your answers in J11:O14 are correct (I have no idea what the 36 in O10
means)
The values in B11:G14 are also correct if you want integers

Look at this:
3 of 9 people like the Simpson's TV program
How many out of 100 will like it?
=(3/9)*100= 33.33333333
You can call this 33 if you want to express your answer as an integer
How many dislike it?
=(6/9)*100= 66.66666666666
Call this 67
33+67 =100 (we were lucky as we had just two numbers)

best wishes

 

[littleredhairedgirl]

If I make my target 33 I get 35 (in whole numbers) when the numbers
are rounded. If target is 102 I get 101 if rounded.

if the number is 2 that's 3.17% and if the number is 5 that's 7.94%
Do I need to take the number on the left side of the decimal point and
then round the rest (MOD) separately?