Made up statistics

According to recent research, only 46% of scientific studies could be reproduced, i.e. the other 54% were impossible to reproduce, suggesting the 'scientists' doing the original study had either 'fudged' the results, or were massively incompetent.

Here's the proof!

Credit: reddit

It's shocking, but sadly not surprising, that modern science is less reliable than a coin flip, but on the positive side, it did at least provide the inspiration for this week's blog post.

Which is a fancy way of saying that I've decided to get in on the game and post a few made up statistics of my own...

1) Studies show that watching a beaver eat cabbage lowers stress by 17%.




2) The phrase 'Don't take this the wrong way' has a 0% success rate.

They did the math(s)

This week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a look at a few examples of 'they did the maths'.*

* Or 'they did the math' for the benefit of American readers.

However, unlike the legacy media who like to tell their readers what to think, I prefer to make my readers think. So, as I often like to do, I've turned it into a true or false quiz! After all, just because 'they did the maths', that doesn't necessarily mean that they did the maths correctly.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...
...which is good news for this proboscis monkey!

So take a look at the following examples and try to decide whether the math(s) backs up the claims, or whether the statements are inaccurate.

1) Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

If 99% of people find you unattractive, then there are still approximately 80 million people on Earth who find you attractive!

True or false?

Happy 10th birthday to Charles Fudgemuffin!

Incredibly, this week it's the 10th anniversary of the Charles Fudgemuffin blog! I've had some significant milestones along the way (such as reaching half a million page views a couple of years ago), but when I started the blog I never imagined I'd still be waffling on each week after ten years!

Anyway, in recognition of my 'birthday', this week's blog post features a birthday themed multiple choice statistical dilemma...

Happy Birthday!
...but to how many people?

Birthday conundrum

If two people are in the same room, there is a 1 in 365 chance of them sharing the same birthday, or a 0.27% chance.

If 366 people are in the same room, there is a 100% chance that at least two of them will share the same birthday.¹

So the question is, how many people would need to be in the room for there to be a 50% chance or greater that at least two people will share a birthday?

A) 23 people
B) 46 people
C) 92 people
D) 183 people

How many days before vampires take over the world?

A vampire conundrum.

My latest book, Fly-Tipping, was published this week, so to promote it, this week's blog post is inspired by a question posed by one of the minor characters from the book:

"If a vampire drank the blood of one human per night, and every human he drank the blood of turned into a vampire who then subsequently also drank the blood of one human per night, how many days would it be before every person in the world was a vampire?”

Before I answer the question, here's a poll to see how many people get it right. Obviously I can't list every possible answer*, so instead I've grouped the answers into various ranges to make things a little easier.

* Well I suppose I could, but it would be a very long poll!

Have you never ... ?

Previously on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I've advised readers to never trust the polls. However, this week I'm going to be a hypocrite, as I take a look at polls investigating various things that people have never done.

The following statistics and are collected from various surveys, research and studies*, and reveal the percentage of people that have never done certain activities!

Even adults can climb trees!

* Conducted by Resolution Foundation, Honest Organic study, Ofice for National Statistics, Kayak, Ginger Research, Iceland, O2, You Gov and others.

1) Never climbed a tree = 67%

Incredibly, two thirds of adults have never climbed a tree! Wow! They don't know what they're missing!

Obviously I don't climb trees nowadays, because I'm old and boring, but when I was young I used to frequently climb trees, and I kind of assumed it was just part of being a kid. If you ask me, anyone who didn't climb a tree as a child had a deprived childhood.

Surprising statistics (part 2)

I've featured surprising statistics before on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog, so it should come as no surprise that this week I round-up another batch of surprising statistics!*

* For clarification, the statistics themselves may be surprising, but my inclusion of those statistics in this week's blog post shouldn't come as a surprise.

"Have you farted?"
"No, it's just the obnoxious spray from my scent glands."

To start things off, here's a surprising statistic about farts!

1) Parp!

Every second, over a million people in the world fart!

The average person farts 14 times per day, and there are approximately 7.7 billion people in the world.*

* At the time of writing.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day, so if we assume that a typical fart lasts for 1 second or less, than an average person will fart during 14 of these 86,400 seconds.

So the number of people who fart each second is:

14 farts / 86,400 seconds x 7,700,000,000 people = 1,247,685 farts every second!

Christmas statistics

Christmas is the season for kindness, generosity, celebration, gratitude, and of course ... statistics!

Admittedly, kindness and generosity are generally more commonly associated with Christmas than statistics, but this week's blog post features a round-up of Christmas themed statistics, so that was the reason for the rather contrived introduction.

Anyway, without further ado, here are a selection of Christmas themed statistics...

By the glum expression on this dog's face, presumably
he was one of the 30% of dogs with a stingy owner.

1) 30% stingy

According to a survey, 7 out of 10 British dogs get Christmas gifts from their loving owners.

Only 7 out of 10! What sort of stingy dog owner doesn't buy their dog some toys for Christmas!?

2) We wish you a heavy Christmas

If everyone in the world left Santa a glass of milk and some biscuits/cookies, he would consume 475 billion calories in one night! Wow! No wonder Santa is a little on the large size!

If any statistical nerds (like myself) want to check the figures, here are the calculations:

How many times would you have to fold a sheet of paper in half for it to reach the moon?

Occasionally on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I ask readers for help, for example with preference of book covers, or for other input when writing new stories. Once again I'm in need of help and this time I'm looking for a cross sample of how people would respond to a specific question. This is the scenario...

The Moon.
Reachable by origami, hypothetically.

In a forthcoming book which I'm writing called The Quiz Master, the main character asks a group of people the following question...

"How many times would you have to fold a piece of paper in half before it would be thick enough to reach the Moon?"

Now in reality you can't fold a regular piece of paper more than 7 or 8 times before it becomes impossible to fold it any more, but if it was a hypothetical situation where you could fold a piece of paper as many times as you wanted, how many times would you have to fold it before it was thick enough to reach to the Moon?

Just to clarify, I'm not trying to find out the actual answer. I know how to use Google so if I wanted to know the answer I wouldn't go to the bother of creating a poll! In fact a friend asked me this question many years ago, so I already know the answer. What I'm interested in is what other people would guess, and what sort of typical spread the main character would get with the answers.

Micromorts: The risk of dying (part 2)

The risk of death can be measured statistically.

I've mentioned before on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog that there's actually a unit to measure the risk of dying known as the 'micromort'.

Just to recap, a micromort is a million to one chance of dying, so an activity with a 5 micromort rating would carry a five in a million chance of death.

This week I look at the micromort rating for a few more activities, starting with a comparison of how the safety of various forms of travel compare...

1) Transport

I love travelling around the world, so it's just as well that I'm not afraid of flying.  However, anyone who is afraid of flying should check out the figures below* which compare the risk of travelling 1,000 kilometres by various forms of transport...

Surprising financial statistics

This week's blog post has a financial theme to it, but rather than just list random financial facts and statistics, I've instead made it into a two part quiz...

Money, pictured yesterday.

1) Interested in interest

If you put 10 pence in a bank account and got 5% interest every year on the balance in your account, how much would you have after 500 years?

A) £2.55
B) £5.10
C) £84.62
D) £3,932,326,182.72

. . . . . . . .

Micromorts: The risk of dying

Caution: If you suffer from thanatophobia (fear of death), discretion is advised before reading this article!

Fighting with a light sabre has a rating of 187,500 micromorts.

2016 was a memorable year in many ways; Leicester's incredible Premier League win, a new Star Wars movie, and of course the release of 'How To Poison Your Husband And Get Away With It', my collection of crime themed short stories (available for kindle from Amazon).

However, it was also a scary and sobering year in the way that so many celebrities seemed to die. It's a morbid thing to think about, but it's also a reminder of how temporary life is, and to take a positive approach, it's a reminder of how we should make the most of every day because you never know how long you've got left.

Believe it or not, there's actually a statistical unit which is a measurement of the risk of dying called the micromort. A micromort is a one in a million chance of death, so for example if an activity has a rating of 1 micromort that means there's a relatively small one in a million chance of dying, whereas a rating of 1,000,000 micromorts would mean certain death.

Here are some micromort ratings for a variety of activities, from just living your life, to more dangerous pursuits...

Things that happen every second (part 2)

This year, New Year's Eve will last slightly longer than a normal New Year's Eve, because the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service have decided that this New Year's Eve will include an extra 'leap second'. This is because geological and climatic factors mean the Earth's rotational speed varies by microscopic amounts, so to keep things precise, an extra second is added to the clock every now and again.

If you're thinking of discovering time travel, think again!

It may seem a bit OCD to worry about miniscule changes of only a second, especially when dealing with an object as big as the Earth, but in actual fact a second can be a very significant period of time. A lot can happen in a second, as you can see from the following list of facts.

Every second...

1) ... 49,515 Google searches are made.


2) ... 0.29 Google searches are made for...
'Star Wars'.


3) ...0.0000076 Google searches are made for...
'Dinosaurs were made up by the CIA to discourage time travel'.

Formula 1: How fast is it?

How does the speed of a formula 1 car compare with other speeds? Read on for a comparison...

A formula 1 car can reach speeds of up to 231.5 mph.
Not this one, though.  This one was stationary

The formula 1 championship comes to an end this weekend, so this week I analyse how the speed of a formula 1 car compares with the speed of a variety of other objects, creatures and events.  As a starting reference point, the maximum speed recorded by a formula 1 car was 231.5 mph set by Juan Pablo Montoya at Monza during the 2005 Italian Grand Prix.

Listed below you can see how Juan Pablo Montoya's feat compares with a variety of other significant speeds.  Here they all are starting with the slowest first...

1) The top speed of the world's fastest snail* = 0.0313 mph

* The speckled garden snail.

Things that happen every second

At the third stroke, the time will be 11:59 and 60 seconds precisely... 

Every second counts.

If you think last Tuesday seemed to drag and felt like a long day ... you were right! That's because the International Earth Rotation And Reference Systems Service (IERS) added an extra second to Tuesday. This additional second is known as a 'leap second' and is kind of like a leap year only a lot shorter.

To explain the reasoning behind leap seconds, without getting too scientific, the speed of Earth's rotation varies by tiny amounts due to geological occurrences, as well as the pull of the Moon and the Sun, so the leap second is basically a way of ensuring our calendar remains precisely accurate.

You may think, "It's only a second! What's the big deal about a second?" but in actual fact a surprisingly high amount of activity can take place in a single second.

For example, every second...

1) ...the Earth orbits 18.5 miles around the Sun!


2) ...the Solar System travels 155 miles around the galactic centre of the Milky Way!