Once the mathematician Peter Bakus calculated that in London, there were only 26 women who were his perfect match. And, oddly enough, married. Does this mean that mathematical methods are applicable to love searches? Yes, especially if you do not demand too much from a potential partner.
At first glance, love and math do not mix well with each other. Nevertheless, love also obeys laws, whether it is about the number of our sexual partners or the choice of Ukrainian chicks on a dating site. These patterns are as varied, bizarre, and confusing as love itself, and only mathematics can describe them. Here are some of them.
· Your chance to find a perfect second half
It may seem to those who have been alone for a long time that it is impossible to find such a person. A series of fruitless dates, or even a lack thereof, gives rise to frustration, irritation, or the feeling that the Universe itself has ganged up on you. For example, in 2010, a mathematician from the University of Warwick (Great Britain), a convinced bachelor Peter Backus, suggested that there were fewer girls worthy of becoming his girlfriend than there were reasonable forms in the Universe.
In an article entitled “Why I Don’t Have a Girl,” applying the Drake Equation to Research Love in the UK, he tried to calculate how many women fit into the category of his potential girlfriends. To do this, Peter used the formula by which scientists at one time tried to find the answer to the question of why aliens have not yet visited Earth.
The bottom line is to divide the problem into smaller ones, and those, in turn, into even smaller ones, and so on, until it becomes possible to make a reasonable assessment. In the case of Bakus, it looked like this (taking into account his requirements):
· How many women live near me? (There are more than 4 million women in London).
· How many of them suit my age? (20%, i.e.> 800,000).
· What part of them is not in a relationship? (50%, i.e.> 400,000).
· How many of them have higher education? (26%, i.e.> 104,000).
· How many of them can be attractive? (5%, i.e.> 5200).
· How many of them might find me attractive? (5%, i.e.> 260 women).
· How many of them could I get along with? (10%, i.e.> 26 women).
Thus, according to his calculations, only 26 women remained among those whom he would consider possible to date. Obviously, his chances would have been higher if he had not been so picky. In other words, the higher your list with the words “by all means” and “by no means,” the less likely it is to find your love. Instead, it’s worth choosing 1-2 points that are really important to you, and then give potential partners a chance. You may be pleasantly surprised. After all, we all know couples whose “halves” could not imagine themselves together and nevertheless coexist very well. Perhaps Peter Bakus could confirm this. After all, he finally got married.
· Who are we really looking for?
Actually, the question can be paraphrased: are we really looking for those whom we supposedly dream of? Let us explain the meaning of the example of the popular western dating site OkCupid, founded by a group of mathematicians. It uses an original algorithm, the purpose of which is to make it easier for users to find the right partner. Processing the profiles of the participants and comparing their preferences and wishes, the program displays for each potential pair a certain amount of points, showing how partners match each other.
But in fact, electronic matchmaker is very often mistaken in their predictions. Once, OkCupid even admitted in a post under the heading “We are experimenting on people!” That the resource has achieved only limited success in selecting couples for long-term relationships.
To test the effectiveness of their algorithm, programmers forced the computer to trick a certain group of visitors. They were informed that their compatibility with a certain candidate is 90% (whereas in reality, it was about 30%). Some of these visitors believed the recommendations of the site and began to exchange messages with those who did not meet their expectations. It would seem that they should quickly figure out the error and finish the conversation. This has happened in many cases. However, 15% of the “deceived” continued communication. And here is the paradox. For those to whom the algorithm without any deception promised almost perfect coincidence (about 90%), the percentage of those who continued communication was not much higher – only 17%. That is, these “ideal” couples were not doing much better than everyone else!
So, the search of the partner is quite random and you never know who will turn out to be really cute and seem attractive to you.
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