Question: How does the Law of Large Numbers help account for a lot of life's weirdness?
Answer: This informal statistical rule of thumb is roughly paraphrasable as: Given a sufficiently large number of chances, even highly improbable events will occur: After billions and billions of days passing on Earth, eventually the slim possibility of being hit by a giant asteroid erupts into reality, and it's goodbye dinosaurs.After billions of human births, eventually some poor soul is born with two heads or the apparatus of both sexes.
And, if you examine the patterns surrounding enough birthdays, eventually you're going to get what one Baltimore newspaper a few years ago reported as some spooky stats.
Turns out a young baby with initials JKR was born at 6:53 p.m. on October 31 -- a Halloween baby. Incredibly, the baby's parents were also both reportedly born on Halloween, as was the doctor who delivered little JKR!
To gauge how long before something like this might happen again, figure roughly 100 million assisted world births annually, with 300,000 on Halloween. Of this 300,000 babies, only one in every 365 would have Halloween moms, or about 1,000; of which one in 365 would also have Halloween dads, or maybe three or four a year. Add in a Halloween doctor or midwife, and the next JKR won't arrive for 100 years.
But that's only for Halloween. If you toss in New Year's and a couple dozen other special days, you're looking at this bizarre coincidence occurring every decade or so!
Question: Some blind people can walk unaided down busy streets, uncannily avoiding obstacles. One 6-year old could even ride a tricycle. How is this possible?
Answer: People with this ability say they feel a kind of shadow or pressure on the face that warns of approaching objects, says John Downer in ""Supersense."" But when they're tested with ears plugged, this mysterious facial vision disappears. Echolocation -- as used by bats and dolphins -- seems to be their secret. The reflected sounds of footsteps, conversation or deliberately issued tongue clicks or cane taps provide the clues. The estimated time required for an echo's return indicates distance to the obstacle, while echo loudness signals the size.
Question: What's a fast, drug-free, cost-free way of pulling yourself out of a mild case of the blues? What works for most people.
Answer: Just act happy, says Hope College psychologist David G. Myers in ""The Pursuit of Happiness."" Try a small smile. It'll feel good. Now try a broad smile. You'll feel even better. Doesn't matter that you're just faking it. Going through the motions will trigger the emotions.
It's the same with gait: Take long, strong strides, arms swinging, eyes straight ahead, and you'll feel a mood upsurge; slow it to a shuffle, eyes downcast, and your spirits too will drag.
Surely you've noticed: You're in a dour mood when the phone rings, you fake a cheery tone, and by the time you hang up, the sullenness is gone. Such is the value of social occasions -- calls, visits, dinners out: They impel us to behave as if we were happy, which in fact helps free us from our unhappiness.
Question: What did they use for toilet paper in 10,000 B.C.?
Answer: Depends on who THEY were, says Indiana University anthropologist Della Cook. Chimpanzees will clean up with leaves, so likely that was the first human toilet paper. In his book Science and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham says paperwipes were already in use by the 6th century A.D., when debate ensued over whether this showed disrespect for any text printed thereon.
Send STRANGE questions to brothers Bill and Rich at strangetrue@compuserve.com