READY, FIRE, AIM: Love and Extraterrestrials, Mathematically Speaking

Photo: Professor Hannah Fry, delivering a TED Talk lecture. (Screenshot)

I was trying to watch a TED Talk the other day — British mathematician Hannah Fry discussing ‘The Mathematics of Love’ — but before YouTube would allow me to view it, I had to listen to physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, in an advertisement, explain the world in one simple sentence.

This was a YouTube advertisement for the “Master Class” program that features really smart people teaching you about their area of expertise. Dr. Tyson’s area of expertise is astrophysics.

I can’t quote Dr. Tyson exactly, but what he said was essentially:

The big challenge for a human being is knowing enough about something to make you believe you’re “right”… but not knowing enough to know you’re “wrong”.

I don’t know if Dr. Tyson was right or wrong when he said that, but I have the distinct impression he thought he was right.

This wasn’t the message I hoped to receive when I accessed the YouTube video of ‘The Mathematics of Love’ lecture. But sometimes you have to watch the advertisement before they let you in.

Does Professor Hannah Fry know enough about ‘The Mathematics of Love’ to know she when she’s ‘wrong’? Because that might be an important question.

She began her lecture with a reference to a 2010 essay by University of Warwick PhD candidate Peter Backus, which has reportedly been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times — rather unusual for a technical mathematics essay, knowing how most people feel about mathematics. The paper was titled, “Why I Don’t Have a Girlfriend” and in it, Mr. Backus modified the famous Drake Equation to calculate the number of women in the UK who might be willing to date him.

Dr. Frank Drake formulated his equation in 1961 as a mathematical way to estimate the number of active, intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. (Not including any that might be found on Earth.) Dr. Drake had become engaged in searching for extraterrestrial radio signals that could indicate an intelligent species trying to contact other intelligent species with some kind of radio message.

In preparation for a 1961 conference about this type of ambitious search, Dr. Drake formulated an equation.

Unfortunately, the equation is worthless because Earth-based science cannot reliably define most of the variables.

But the variables in Peter Backus’ equation — used to calculate mathematically why he didn’t have a girlfriend — could conceivably be scientifically defined to generate an approximate number N…

…N being the number of women in the UK likely to end up dating Mr. Backus (age 31 at the time his paper was published.)  By inserting defined terms such as…

The 
fraction
 of
 people 
in
 the
 UK
 who 
are
 women

and

The fraction of women who are age 24-34

and

The fraction of women who live near Mr. Backus in London

and

The fraction of women that Mr. Backus might find attractive

and

The fraction of women who might find Mr. Backus attractive

…he solved the equation and arrived at the the following conclusion:

A rough estimate puts the number of potential girlfriends accounting for these three additional criteria (1 in 20 of the women find me attractive, half are single, and I get along with 1 in 10) at 26. That’s correct. There are 26 women in London with whom I might have a wonderful relationship. So, on a given night out in London there is a 0.0000034% chance of meeting one of these special people, about 100 times better than finding an alien civilization we can communicate with.

As mentioned, Dr. Hannah Fry referred to Mr. Backus’ formula at the beginning of her TED Talk.

Dr. Fry is the Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and president of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. She was previously a professor at University College London.

But in her TED talk, she addressed something possibly useful to the average non-mathematician: three tips on how to succeed in finding a suitable lifelong partner, by applying mathematics to your activities.  You can view the whole TED Talk here.

I found her lecture to be mildly amusing, although not extremely useful — since it was obviously aimed at people who are trying to find and retain a lifelong partner.  I already tried that, many years ago, and failed miserably.

But one thing I found disturbing.  While sharing the story about Peter Backus and his published paper, Dr. Fry summarized Mr. Backus’ conclusion:

“Of all the women in the UK,  all Peter is looking for is someone who lives near him, somebody in the right age range, somebody with a university degree, somebody he might get on well with, somebody who’s likely to be attractive, and somebody who’s likely to find him attractive…

“And he comes up with an estimate of 26 women in the whole of the UK.  It’s not looking very good, is it, Peter?

“Now just to put that into perspective, that’s about 400 times fewer that the best estimates of how many intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms there are…”

The TED Talk audience graced Dr. Fry with good-hearted laughter.

But I wasn’t laughing, because I had actually read Peter Backus’ paper… and in his conclusion, he wrote that…

…on a given night out in London there is a 0.0000034% chance of meeting one of these special people, about 100 times better than finding an alien civilization we can communicate with.

So what is it?

Are Mr. Backus’ chances of meeting the love of his life “100 times better than finding an alien civilization we can communicate with”…?

Or are his chances — as Dr. Fry stated — “400 times fewer that the best estimates of how many intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms there are”…?

Because, I don’t think we can have it both ways.

Am I wrong?