Why Do Buses Come in Threes: The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life

US: Wiley, 1999. Hardcover. Good. (No Dustjacket) Why is it better to buy a lottery ticket on a Friday? Is bad luck just chan ce, or can it be explained? Is it possible to win every time without cheati ng? And can math greatly increase your odds of getting a date and even fall ing in love? If you've had the sneaking suspicion ever since the third grad e that math is conspiring against you--you're right. Math and the laws of p robability are constantly at work in our lives, affecting everything we do from getting a date to catching a bus. Why Do Buses Come in Threes? is a delightfully entertaining ride for anyone wanting to remind themselves--or discover for the first time--that math is relevant to almost everything we do. Buses that bunch, identical potato ch ips, and slicing a cake evenly for an odd number of guests all have their l inks to intriguing mathematical problems. With great humor and a genuine lo ve for the subject, the authors present the solutions to such conundrums as how fast one should run in the rain to keep dry and who was the greatest s portsman statistically. Discover the mathematical explanations for the strange coincidence of two Presidents dying on July 4, the uncanny "accuracy" of horoscopes, the number of petals on a flower and seeds in an apple, and other not-so-coincidental coincidences. Eastaway and Wyndham also reveal how television ratings work, which numbers are more likely to be big winners in the lottery, and why bad things, just like buses, always seem to happen in threes. It's a fascinating journey through the logic of life where Newton's laws explain bar fights, exploding rabbit populations, and why showers always run either t.