## Saturday, 16 February 2013

### I'mma $$f(n)$$ maths you up: 3

To: mX Funny Valentine,

I'mma just give you a moment to appreciate that jazzy, punny salutation.

Awww yeah!

Okay, fair enough, Valentine's day was like, three days ago - but hey, I've been busy, didn't get a chance to write this up. But when the Valentine's day issue of the mX (free newspaper in Melbourne) comes out with a front page title like this gem:

"Only 599 eligible bachelors in town."

So, this claim is supposedly based upon surveys done by Roy Morgan Research (although I kinda (*) wonder if the mX just yoinked it from NewsMaker (**)). The idea is that they compiled a list of "must-haves" in an eligible dude, in particular:
• financial stability: 55%
• is totes a cook(ie monster): 57%
• bought deodorant in the last 6 months: 57%
• is a Mr. Fix It-type (is that a real type?): 40%
• believes in helping peeps: 80%
• believes that expensive restaurants are worth it: 35%
• read a book in the last three months: 56%
• has acceptable BMI (somehow, that seems worse than saying not too fat, not too thin): 52%
• like weekends away: 51%
• like to know what's going on in the world (really? not everyone's into hermitty artists?): 67%
• recycles everything: 84%
• don't have substance abuse issues or dandruff (yes, I know, this is a pretty weird combo): 87%
and just multiplied all of those probabilities and the population of Melbourne.

Homework: work our roughly what the population of Melbourne is.

Needless to say, this is probably very bad maths. This calculation assumes independence, which is totally suss in this case. Like, I'm fairly sure that guys who know what's going on in the world, and read books are going to be just a tad more financial stable - so that's good news for any conservationists who are worried about eligible bachelor populations. On the other hand, I do worry that people who are good cooks might be less inclined to go to expensive restaurants...but maybe I'm wrong on that, maybe good cooks can actually appreciate the amount of work that goes into creating a dish at The Fat Duck.

Whatever the case, I declare this rant over. =P

Maaaan, bad use of statistics, that's just $$f(n)$$ mathed up.

*: kinda in the sense that I'm almost certain that it's true.
**: in the mX's defence, that website is all about making news - and who better to distribute it than a newspaper?