Littlewood’s Law: A Miracle a Month
May 2nd, 2009
Would you consider a one in one million chance occurrence a miracle? Perhaps you’re traveling in China. You’re marveling at the Great Wall. Beside you — a fellow traveler with whom you strike a conversation. In minutes, you discover that he or she lives in the same city and graduated in the same year (albeit different high school). Moreover, your birthdays are within the same week and you both love peanut butter on celery. What’s the chance of this! And if he or she happens to be attractive and you happen to be available, you can’t help but believe that Fate has reached down to touch the moment.
One in one million. That’s the definition of a miracle worked out by Cambridge mathematician J.E. Littlewood. Using simple math and a few suppositions, professor Littlewood figured that we should expect one miraculous occurrence every 35 days. In essence, these chance occurances upon which we are inclined to place so much meaning, may not be that unusual at all.
Littlewood started with the supposition that we are alert and active for at least 8 hours a day. (That means hours NOT passively staring into our TV or computer screens!) Secondly, we experience roughly one event per second. Therefore, in 35 days, we will have experienced 1,008,000 events – 8000 more events than what we need to experience that one in a million miracle! Here’s the math.
8 hours x 3600 (seconds per hour) = 28800 (events per 8 hour day)
28800 (events) x 35 (days) = 1,008,000 ( events per 35 days)
Of course, the more active your life, the more varied the events you’re likely to encounter. We might say on a purely mathematical basis that traveling to China, or hiking the Appalachian Trail,
Appalachian trail
or frequent walks around your town, will afford more opportunity to experience those monthly miracles than spending hours, weeks, and even months sitting in front of your computer screen.
Keep in mind, however, that neither Littlewood, nor anyone else, will be able to tell you what, exactly, those miracles might be.
One more small requirement for encountering a miracle? You have to be on the lookout for one.
video and space fantacy pics by fairy8circle.