Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538
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.'"
passive and whiny (Score:3, Interesting)
The pdf:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_students/backus/why_i_dont_have_a_girlfriend.pdf [warwick.ac.uk]
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.
In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Interesting)
...the chicks actually dig intelligent guys.
Really.
So do chicks from just about any eastern bloc country for that matter.
Re:Fussy much? (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stunt (Score:3, Interesting)
But since we are now accumulating good data to populate the equation (by discovering planets) the Drake Equation may actually be of use to us.
My own drake equation (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
Re:Such garbage... (Score:1, Interesting)
Drake equation? Given that part of the equation which makes it the Drake equation is the split into the probabilities related to life in space, and this would be replaced with comletely different stuff about finding women, then what do we have left? The basic multiplicative property of probabilities. That is some advanced shit right there i tell you!
The article should read; "Man multiplies probabilities for finding a girlfriend"
Re:I blocked 'Idle' (Score:2, Interesting)
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 :/.
Re:idle (Score:3, Interesting)
1. The Drake Equation is about aliens.
2. Some SF is about aliens.
----------------
3. Therefore, the Drake Equation is SF.
Did I miss something?
Re:Ironically (Score:2, Interesting)
same mathematical mistake as the financial crisis (Score:4, Interesting)
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.