Wednesday, May 29, 2013

How Easy to Fall in Love in Chennai? A Statistical Perspective.


Straight to the point, no honey and cream at the beginning as usual.
I recently came across a mathematical equation called Drake Equation, which is originally proposed to calculate civilizations that could possibly exist in our galaxy. And elsewhere, a mathematical genius applied to calculate number of singles in a given city and others to different purpose. I tried to twist a bit and applied to calculate probability of a guy to fall in love in Chennai city, it worked. As now it’s clear that this is not my own idea. But what exactly I have done is used this equation for a different case in study, which in turn is a new thinking.
Here we go.
Adopted and slightly modified Drake Equation

G = N * Fw * Fl *Fa *Fv  *Fb

G = Number of available women for a potential act of Love in Chennai who will qualify for your criteria.
N = Population in Chennai
Fw = Fraction of population who are women in Chennai.
Fc = Fraction of potential women who belong to your own community.
Fa = Fraction of women in appropriate age group you like.
Fv = Fraction of women who are educated with an engineering degree.
Fb = Fraction of women who you find as attractive.

N = Population in Chennai:
A quick Google search gave me a figure of 5.9 million in 2009, so I will stick to it without either any argument on its accuracy or looking into a more recent figure. This will do for the case in question. So a million have six zeros? (Correct me if I’m wrong). Then we have 5.9 ×106 is the total population of Chennai.
Fw = Fraction of population who are women in Chennai.
No Google search this time, I roughly assume 50% of the population is women. So 0.50 of total are women.
Fc = Fraction of potential women who belong to your own community.
For safer side, if you like your girlfriend to be within your community this applies. Roughly, say 5% (0.05).
Fa = Fraction of women in appropriate age group you like.
Assuming you are 27 year old and looking for someone around that age group, between 22 and 28. Let’s assume 25% (0.25) fits in that bracket.
Fv = Fraction of women who are educated with an engineering degree.
Let’s say you prefer a girl who has an engineering degree. To add few words, Engineering is the most preferred course in Tamil Nadu. There are about 400 Engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu and each can host roughly 500 students per year, eventually 2,00,000 a year. Half are women between 22-24, so one lakh women for a given year fit in your condition. If you are 27/28 get all the girls in last 6/7 years who finished engineering 7×1,00,000. Discontinuing the calculation further, I roughly assume 10% (0.10).
Fb = Fraction of women who you find as attractive.
This is very easy to assume since, “most of the guys like most of the girls out there” and most of the Chennai girls are beautiful. I arrive at 50% (0.50)
Applying all the numbers
G = 5.9 × 106 × 0.50 × 0.05 × 0.25 × 0.10 × 0.50

= 1843 women fit into your category.
So now you have 1843 women with whom you can potentially have an affair, who are in Chennai, belong to your community, in your age group, with an engineering degree and you find as attractive.
Now, we didn’t include their choices/preferences. They should also like you, which is “the biggest of all conditions”. Now it’s tricky to assume what fraction of women will like you. I am being generous here, say only 10% like you. We will end up with 184 women.
We can also take this further, like what is the probability to see one of the 184 women on a given weekend in a given month and so on. I think better I will stop here. Final comments: I neither encourage nor discourage anyone to fall in love desperately. When you are in a mood to fall in love, use this equation to know the probability. No philosophical ending here.

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