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Today I want to talk to you
about the mathematics of love.
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I think we can all agree
that mathematicians
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are famously excellent
at finding love.
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But it's not just because
of our dashing personalities
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our superior conversational skills,
our our excellent pencil cases,
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It's also because we've done
a lot of work into the maths
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of how to find the perfect partner.
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In my favorite paper on the subject,
which is entitled,
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"Why I Don't Have a Girlfriend",
Peter Backus tries to rate
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his chances at finding love.
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Now, peter is not a
very greedy man.
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Of all of the available
women in the UK,
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all that Peter's looking for is
somebody who lives near him,
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somebody in the
right age range,
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somebody with a
university degree,
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somebody he's likely
to get on well with,
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somebody attractive,
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somebody who is likely
to find him attractive
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(Laughter),
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and comes up with an
estimate of 26 women
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in the whole of the UK.
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It's not looking very good,
is it Peter?
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Now just to put that
into perspective,
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that's about 400 times fewer
than the best estimates
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of how many intelligent
extra-terrestrial life forms there are.
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And it also gives Peter a
1 in 285,000 chance
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of bumping into any one
of these special ladies
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on a night out.
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I'd like to think that's why
mathematicians don't really bother
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going on nights out anymore.
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The thing is is that I personally
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don't subscribe to
such a pessimistic view.
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I know, just as well
as you do,
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that love doesn't
really work like that
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human emotion
isn't neatly ordered,
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rational, or easily predictable.
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But I also know that that doesn't
mean that mathematics
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doesn't have something
it can offer us
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because, love, as
with most of life,
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is full of patterns
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and mathematics is, ultimately,
all about the study of patterns.
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patterns from predicting
the weather,
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to the fluctuations of
the stock market,
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to the movement
of the planets,
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or the growth of cities.
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If we're being honest, none
of those things are neatly ordered
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Or easily predictable, either.
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Because I believe
that mathematics
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is so powerful that
is has the potential
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to offer us a new way of looking
at almost anything.
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Even something as
mysterious as love.
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And so, to try
to persuade you
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of how totally, excellent
and relevant mathematics is,
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I want to give you my top three
mathematically verifiable tips for love.
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Okay, so top tip #1:
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How to win at online dating.
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So my favorite
online dating website
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is OkayCupid,
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not least because it was
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started by a group
of mathematicians.
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Now because they're
mathematicians,
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they have been collecting
data on everyone
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whose been using their site
for almost a decade.
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And they've been
trying to search
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for patterns in the way that
we talk about ourselves
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and the way that we
interact with each other
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on online dating websites.
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And they've come up with
seriously interesting findings.
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But my particular favorite
is that it turns out
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that on an online
dating website,
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how attractive you are
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does not dictate
how popular you are
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and actually having people
think that you're ugly
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can work to your advantage.
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Let me show you
how this works.
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Okay, in a thankfully
voluntary section,
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you are allowed to rate
how attractive people are
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between 1 and 5.
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And if we compare this score,
this average score
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to how many messages a
selection of people receive,
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You can begin to get a sense
of how attractiveness
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links to popularity
on online dating.
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So this is a graph
that the online
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OkayCupid guys
have come up with
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and the important
thing to notice
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is that it's not totally true
that the more attractive you are,
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the more messages you get.
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But the question arises then
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of what is it about people up here
who are so much more popular
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than people down here
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even though they have the
same score of attractiveness?
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And the reason why is that it's
not just straight-forward looks
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that are important.
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So let me try to illustrate
their findings
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with an example.
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If you take someone
like Portia de Rossi,
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everybody agrees
that Portia de Rossi
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is a very beautiful woman.
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Nobody thinks
that she's ugly,
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but she's not a supermodel.
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If you compare
Portia de Rossi
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to someone like
Sarah Jessica Parker,
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now, a lot of people,
myself included,
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think that Sarah Jessica Parker
is seriously fabulous
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and possibly one of the
most beautiful creatures
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to have ever have walked
the face of the earth.
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But, some other people,
e.i. most of the internet,
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seem to think that she
looks a bit like a horse
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(Laughter).
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Now, I think that if
you ask people
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how attractive Sarah Jessica Parker
or Portia de Rossi are,
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and you ask them to give
them a score between 1 and 5,
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I reckon that they would
average out to the same score.
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But the way that people would vote
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would be very different.
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So Portia's scores would
all be clustered around
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the four because everybody
agrees that she's very beautiful.
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whereas Sarah Jessica Parker
divides opinion.
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There a huge spread
in her scores.
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And actually it's this
spread that counts.
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It's this spread that
makes you more popular
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on online internet
dating websites.
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So what this means then
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is that if some people think
that you're attractive,
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you're actually better off
having some other people
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think that you're a massive minger.
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That's much better than
everybody thinking
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that you're the cute
girl next door.
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i think that this
makes a bit more sense
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when you think in terms
of the people
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who are sending
these messages.
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So let's say that you think
somebody's attractive
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but you suspect that
other people
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won't necessarily be
that interested.
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That means that there is
less competition for you
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and that there's
an extra incentive
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for you to get in touch.
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Whereas compare
that to if you think
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somebody is attractive
but you suspect
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that everybody is going
to think they're attractive.
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Well, why would you
bother humiliating yourself?
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Here's where the really
interesting part comes.
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People choose the pictures that
they use on an online, dating website,
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they often try to
minimize the things
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that they think people
will find unattractive.
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The classic example is that people
who are a little bit overweight
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deliberately choosing
a very cropped photo.
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or bald men, for example,
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deliberatly choosing pictures
where they're wearing hats.
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But this is the opposite of
what you should do
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if you want to be successful.
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You should really, instead, play
up to whatever it is
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that makes you different.
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Even if you think that
some people
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will find you unattractive.
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Because the people
who fancy you
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are just going to
fancy you anyway,
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and the unimportant
losers who don't
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well, they only play out
to your advantage.
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Okay, top tip #2: How to pick
the perfect partner.
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So let's imagine then that
you're a roaring success
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on the dating scene.
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But the question arises of
how do you then convert
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that success into
longer-term happiness
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and in particular,
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how do you decide when is the
right time to settle down?
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Now generally, it's not
advisable to just cash in
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on the first person who comes along
and shows you any interest at all.
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But, equally, you don't want
to leave it too long
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if you want to maximize your
chances of longterm happiness.
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As my favorite author,
Jane Austen put it,
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"An unmarried woman
of seven and twenty
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can never hope to feel or
inspire affection again."
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(Laughter).
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Thanks, Jane.
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So the question is then,
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how do you know when
is the right time
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to settle down given
all the people
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you can date in
your lifetime?
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Thankfully, there is a
rather delicious bit
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of mathematics that
we can use to
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help us out here.
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So lets imagine then,
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that you start
dating when you're 15
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and ideally, you'd like to be
married by the time you're 35.
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The number of people that you
could potentially date
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across your lifetime,
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and they'll be at kind of varying
levels of goodness.
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Now the rules are
that when you cash in
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and get married,
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you can't look ahead and see
what you could have had,
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and equally, you can't go back
and change your mind.
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In my experience at least,
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i find that people don't typically
like being recalled
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years after being
passed up.
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For somebody else,
or that's just me.
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So the math says then
that what you should do
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in the first 37 percent
of your dating window,
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you should reject everybody
as serious marriage potential.
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And then, you should pick the
next person who comes along
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who is better than everyone
that you've seen before.
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So here's the example.
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Now if you do this, it can be
mathematically proven in fact
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that this is the best
possible way of
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maximizing your chances of
finding the perfect partner.
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Now, unfortunately i have to tell
you that this method
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does come with some risks.
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For instance, imagine if your
perfect partner
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appeared during your
first 37 percent.
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Now unfortunately,
you'd have to reject them.
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Now, if you're
following the maths,
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I'm afraid that if no one
else comes along
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better than anyone
you've seen before
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so you have to go
on rejecting everyone
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and die alone.
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(Laughter).
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Probably surrounded by cats
nibbling at your remains.
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Okay, another risk is,
let's imagine instead
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that the first people
that you dated
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in your first 37 percent are just
incredibly dull, terrible people.
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Now, that's okay, cause you're in
your rejection phase,
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so you can reject them.
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But, then imagine that the
next person who comes along
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is just marginally less boring,
dull and terrible
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than everybody that
you've seen before.
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Now, if you are following
the maths
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I'm afraid that you have
to marry them
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and end up in a relationship
that is, frankly, suboptimal.
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Sorry about that.
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But I do think that there's
an opportunity here
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for hallmark to cash in on
and really cater to this market.
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with a valentines day
card like this:
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"My darling husband, you
are marginally less terrible
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than the first 37 percent
of people I dated."
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It's actually more romantic
than I normally manage.
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Okay, so this method doesn't give
you a 100 percent success rate.
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but there's no other possible
strategy that can do any better.
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And actually, in the wild
there are certain
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types of fish that follow
this exact strategy.
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So they reject every possible
suitor that turns up in
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in the first 37 percent
of the mating season,
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then they
pick the next fish
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who comes along after
that window who is,
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i don't know, bigger and burlier
than all the fish that they've seen.
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I also think that
subconsciously,
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humans, we sort of
do this anyway.
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We give ourselves enough
time to play the field,
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get a feel for the
marketplace or whatever,
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when we're young.
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and then we only start
looking seriously
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at potential marriage
candidates
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when we hit our
mid-to-late 20's.
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I think this is
conclusive proof,
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if ever it were needed ,
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that everybody's brains
are prewired to be
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just a little bit mathematical.
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Okay, so that was top tip #2.
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Top tip #3: How to avoid divorce.
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Okay so let's imagine then that you
picked the perfect partner
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and you're settling into a
lifelong relationship with them.
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Now, I like to think
that everybody
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would like to avoid divorce
from Piers Morgan's wife, maybe?
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But it's a sad fact
in modern life
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that 1 in 2 marriages
end in divorce,
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with the rest of the world
not being far behind.
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Now, you can be forgiven, perhaps
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for thinking that the arguments
that precede a marital breakup
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are not an ideal candidate
for mathematical investigation.
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For one, it's very
hard to know
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what you should be measuring
and what you should be quantifying.
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But this didn't stop a
psychologist, John Gottman,
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who did exactly that.
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He observed, Gottman observed,
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hundreds of couples
having a conversation
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and recorded well, everything
you could think of.
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So he recorded what was said
in the conversation.
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He recorded skin conductivity,
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he recorded their facial expressions,
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heart rates, their blood pressure
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basically everything apart from whether
or ont the wife was always right,
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which incidentally she totally is.
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But what Gottman found, what
Gottman and his team found ,
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was that one of the
most important predictors
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for whether or not a couple
is going to get divorced
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is how positive or negative each
partner was being in the conversation.
-
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Now couples that were
very low risk
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scored a lot more positive on
Gottman's scale than negative
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Whereas bad relationship,
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as in, those that are probably
going to get divorced,
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they found themselves getting
into a spiral of negativity.
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now just by using these very simple ideas
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gotman and his group were able to predict
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whether a given couple
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was going to get divorced
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with a 90 percent accuracy
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but it wasn't until he teamed up
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with a mathematician james murray
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that they really started to understand what caused
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these negativity spirals and how they occur
-
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and the results that they found
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i think are just incredibly, impressively, simple
-
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and interesting
-
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so these equations, they predict
-
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how the wife or husband is going
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to respond in the next turn
of the conversation
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how positive or negative
they're going to be
-
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and these equations, they depend on
-
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mood of the person when they're on their own
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the mood of the person when they're with
their partner
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but most importantly, they depend on
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how much the husband and wife
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influence one another
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now i think it's important to point out
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that at this stage that these exact
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equations have also been shown t
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to be perfectly
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able to describe what happens between two
-
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countries in an arms race
-
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laughter
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so that an arguing couple
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spiraling into negativity
-
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teetering on the brink of divoirce
-
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is actually mathematically equivalent to
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the beginning of a nuclear war
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laughter
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but the really important term
-
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in this equation is the influence
-
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that people have on one another
-
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and in particular
-
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something called the negativity threshhold
-
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now the negativity threshhold
-
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you can think of as
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how annoying the husband can
-
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be before the wife starts to get really pissed of
-
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and vice versa
-
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now i always thought that good marriages
-
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are about compromise and understanding
-
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and allowing the person
-
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to have the space to be themselves
-
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so i would have thought that
-
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perhaps the most successful relationships
-
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are the ones where there is
-
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a really high negativity threshhold
-
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where couples let things go
-
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and only brought things up if there
-
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really were a big deal
-
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but actually, the mathematics
-
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and subsequent findings by the team
-
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have shown that the exact opposite is true
-
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the best couples of the most successful couples
-
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are the ones are the ones with a
-
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really low negativity threshold
-
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these are the couples that
-
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don't let anything go unnoticed
-
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they allow each other some room to complain
-
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these are the couples that are continually trying to repair
-
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their own relationship
-
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that have a much more positive outlook on their marriage
-
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couples that don't let things go
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and couples that don't let trivial things end up being
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a really big deal
-
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now of course, it takes more than just a low negativity
-
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threshold and not compromising
-
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to have a succesful relationship
-
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but i think that it's quite interesting
-
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to know that there is really
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mathematical evidence to support that
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you should never let the sun
-
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go down on your anger
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so those are my top three tips for how
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maths can help you with
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love and relaitonships
-
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but i hope that aside form
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these aside form these tips
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they also give you a little bit of
-
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insight into the power of mathematics
-
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because for me,
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equationsand symbols
-
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aren't just a thing
-
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they are a voice that
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speaks out about the incredible richness
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of nature
-
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and the startling simplicity
-
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in the patterns that
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twist and turn
-
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and warp and evolve
-
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around us
-
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from how the world wokrs
-
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to how we behave
-
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so i hope that perhaps
-
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for just a couple of you
-
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a little bit of insight into
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mathematics of love
-
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can persuade you
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to have a little bit more love
-
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for mathematics
-
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thank you
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applause
NG
Hi English LC,
At 14:35:88, the word 'threshhold' has an extra 'h'.
'and in particular, something called
the negativity threshhold.'
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 2/28/2017.