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Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes
artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"
Common, this is just a stunt in order to get his picture all over the net in order to find a girlfriend !
He must count on the fact that girls will try to prove him wrong or that girls will be pleased to be the one in a million girl.
Brilliant tactic although... ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
What about...
fraction of women who would find him attractive.
fraction of women who are hetro/bisexual.
fraction of women who wont think hes a dick for assuming love is as easy as guesstimating a few numbers.
The pdf:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_students/backus/why_i_dont_have_a_girlfriend.pdf
After getting Fox news coverage and front page Slashdotting N* is
now significantly higher than the paper estimate. Think 10-100x.
f(L) is fraction of people in London from N*. Why limit
yourself to London? You or your partner might move, travel,
visit friends, soon even if you're looking for love!
Even within London, the author doesn't count people movement -
those who come to London over time.
Further, the author forgets that most all people *like* to find
productive partnerships. Unlike SETI, where we have no evidence
that the other party is looking for us, we know that women like
to find great men just as much you want to find an "attractive,
age-appropriate woman with a University education".
Worst, the author spent time write why he "can't find" a partner
when he would be better served getting out there doing activities
he loves with other people and having a great time life. Then
other people will find him, and help find others.
Truly be yourself and it is uniquely attractive.
This is taken directly from this episode of This American Life with Ira Glass.
-l
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Actually it's not reasonable, but predictable. There is actually a (more or less) general consensus on beauty. Basically it revolves around our liking for healthy looking partners that look like they could be partners to viable offspring with.
Generally, the pale, skinny (or grossly overweight) basement dweller isn't it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He should try lottery or SETI@Home next. From TFA:
But in the end Backus defied the odds. Asylum reported that Backus has a girlfriend of about six months. "She's from London," he told the Web site. "And she meets all my criteria."
Good for him, but not very good for his theory...
The ENIAC Demo Competition
So what you are saying is love is affected by the uncertainty principal and to observe it or attempt to quantify it in a meaningful manner fundamentally changes it?
What's the mathematical odds that he might be gay? (Not that there's anything wrong with that)
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
...the chicks actually dig intelligent guys.
Really.
So do chicks from just about any eastern bloc country for that matter.
http://xkcd.com/384/
Congratulations, you can google some numbers and stick them into a formula. You're brilliant, and it's oh so funny to come up with bullshit statistics like "only 100 times more likely than finding intelligent life in the universe".
Oh come on, it's obvious. He doesn't have a girlfriend because he is the type of guy who would use the Drake equation to figure out why he doesn't have a girlfriend. Duh.
One of the reasons he can't find a girlfriend is because he is one of those people who USE the Drake equation. But seriously, look at his Criteria.
Backus found that of the 30 million women in the UK, only 26 would be suitable girlfriends for him. His equation looked at the total number of women in the country, then narrowed it down using relevant factors including the number of women in London; the number of "age-appropriate" women (those aged between 24-34); women with a college degree; and those who Backus would find physically attractive.
Okay - so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Wasn't this done on the big bang theory?
-------
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He's set personal standards that are virtually impossible to meet. That would be his problem, not the female population's.
Are you kidding me? All he wants is a person around his age, living in the same city, with a university education, and that he finds attractive. That is not "virtually impossible" the only thing there that is probably different than 90+% of what everyone is looking for is the university education, and I wouldn't even be sure it's that different. Now, having said that I don't think using math like this is all that great an idea, though it could work.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
Sounds like someone doesn't understand Statistics.
Of course not! 90% of people don't, and 150% of people know that. Duh!
He is studying at the University of Warwick, which is near Coventry. It is far away from London. He is "studying in London" in the same sense that all Californians are residents of San Francisco. Has FOX News' target audience never heard of any English city besides London?
Love, too, is surprisingly predictable. Take two people who would not automatically rule each other out romantically, put them in frequent contact with each other, give each a significant need (sexual or not) that isn't being met in their life but is met through the other, and odds are surprisingly high that they'll end up in a relationship. And there are all sorts of actions that dramatically increase the odds. For example, confessing your feelings to another person tends to encourage them to reciprocate even if they hadn't had the feelings before. That's why the #1 and #2 rules for if you're trying to avoid having an affair are that if you develop feelings for someone else, immediately cut off contact with the person insomuch as is possible and *never* confess your feelings to them.
Stop it, stop it, it's fine. I will *destroy* you.
Right. Any story about a mathematician finding a girlfriend should be in the science fiction section.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Then he mentions he will only find 5% of "physically attractive" candidates. [snip] In other words, guy's too picky :-)
When was the last time you were in London?
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
What are the #1 and #2 rules for avoiding stabbing a random stranger on the street?
It seems my booklet got lost in the mail, so I thought I would ask you.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Id love to see the lucky 26 that get a chance at this guy!
Hooters hooters, yum yum yum.
Hooter hooters, on a girl that's dumb.
What's all this education he's looking for?
Pesonally, I think he doesn't have a GF because he's the type of geek who thinks of explaining why he doesn't have a GF with the Drake equation
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Maybe if he had spent the time and effort he did writing the paper on going out and trying to find a girlfriend instead, he'd have had one?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I work it in reverse. (And that does not mean "up the butt")
For every 3 girls I talk to, I'll get one number.
For every 3 numbers I get, I'll get a date.
For every 3 dates I get, I'll get a 2nd date.
For every 3 2nd dates I get I'll score.
For every 3 girls I score with I will continue to date.
So this means I'll actually have 1 in 243 chance of meeting a girl I like beyond just sex.
Given that I date about once a week (on average) that mean every 4.6 years I'll be in a relationship.
And checking my work, that works out to seem right.
I *HIGHLY* recommend the book "Mathematics and Sex" which I believe I bought because of a /. book review...
In it, it says 12 relationships is what you need to find your best match. Given 4.6 * 12, I'll be 56 before I find the one...
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I once did a similar calculation for my city of 200,000, and came up with an answer of approximately 2. At that point I concluded I would never find either one of them, and gave up.
Prove this, and I'll show by induction that all the positive integers are subsets of 1!
We'll share the credit!
Are you sure about #2?
I think 5% is a reasonable number. Keep in mind when thinking about the number, he's 31, that means the dating pool of women is shrinking, I would think the majority of those are from the end of the pool that the general public is going to find attractive, which means that the available women keep getting "uglier".
That's rather insulting. His age group is 24 to (34?), and you're acting like the singles in that age group are mostly hags.
Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier:
"Compare this to the average high school where every other kid pairs up with someone in the same school. What does his Drake equation have to say about that?"
And that's *with* the social awkwardness of high school. Out of your average of, what, perhaps 1000 kids per school, generally over half of them pair up. And usually with people from the same class.
Stop it, stop it, it's fine. I will *destroy* you.
Right. Any story about a mathematician finding a girlfriend should be in the science fiction section.
Any story about the Drake Equation belongs in the SF section.
$ make available
Because Samzempus purposely puts idle material under "Science" or "Technology" so that it gets views. He knows most of us block idle, so the only way to get views on his stupid shit is by bypassing our filters.
I wonder if there's a way to contact the /. admins and ask for him to be fired. He does it every single day and the quality of the site has gone down considerably due to it. I'd be fine if he properly labeled idle things idle, but he doesn't. Based on comments it seems there are quite a few of us who wish he'd be fired. Maybe if we all mailed the admins, it could happen?
Probably wishful thinking :/.
1. The Drake Equation is about aliens.
2. Some SF is about aliens.
----------------
3. Therefore, the Drake Equation is SF.
Did I miss something?
To most high school students, their relationship is TEH MOST SERIOUS EVAR! In retrospect, they're not, but that doesn't change the equation.
5% is way, way, way too low. In the right situation, I bet he could fall in love with 80% of women in his age group. And the percent that is single is still quite high. And people don't get "locked up" forever in relationships, either, due to divorce or breakups. And it's not like people get married in the order of most attractive to least.
Stop it, stop it, it's fine. I will *destroy* you.
Plus you might date someone you find averagely attractive, by the end of the night glimpse something about them that makes you like them more, and six months later think they're the most beautiful person in the world.
They say familiarity breeds contempt, but sometimes it works the other way.
I'm British. I've spent a fair amount of time in the US. And I disagree.
Patriotism aside, I think one probably develops a taste for local styles.
Oh, and TV isn't really representative of real life. British TV has less of a propensity for glamour than American TV. Our most popular soaps - Coronation St. and Eastenders - make a habit of taking beautiful actresses and making them dowdy in costume/makeup.
The mistake is presume that the factors are independent of one another. When you assume independence you can take the logical intersection of the probabilities which is multiplying less-than-unity probabilities together. You can obtain a rather small result choosing enough factors. But if the factors are correlated, the correct mathematics is the largest probability number. Both the astronomical conditions and girlfriend factors are correlated to some degree makeing the results less than valid.
This is the identical mistake made valuating debt securities. The mathematical underpinning was that you can offload most of the risk into a "junk tranch" by assuming failures like foreclosures are statistically independent. By "drake equation magic", i.e. multiplying probabilities to obtain the group probability, the group risk appears rather small. Independence is a decent assumption during good economic times because economic failures are more individual luck or actions. But during a recession, economic failures are correlated, making the group statistical model invalid. The so-called good-risk securities turned into garbage and the junk securities became gold.
I fear since a economics grad student does not understand probability like so many of his peers, this does not bode well for the future economy.