In the style of Harper's Index, if with so much less elegance...
Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in 9/2001: 2,996
Estimated number of those that were US citizens: 2,669
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in the same month: 3,303
Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists between 9/12/2001 and 12/31/2008: 0
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in approximately the same period: 303,841
Total approved, as of 12/2009, for the three military operations initiated to combat terrorism in response to 9/11 (excluding funds for CIA, FBI, TSA, Homeland Security, etc.): $1,086,000,000,000
Estimated budget for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the same period: $6,520,000,000
The NHTSAs budget, expressed as a percent of the amount allocated for these military operations: 00.
Estimate, in 2008, for the final total cost of the Iraq war alone: $3,000,000,000,000
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/11/2001: $406,893,967.78
Amount allocated to the NHTSA per traffic related death: $21,458.59
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/12/2001: Undefined
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that kill more people than terrorism: 100
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that receive more public money for prevention than terrorism: 0
Percent change in gross federal debt between 2001 and 2010: 232.97
Percentage of gross federal debt in 2001 that would have been eliminated by 1.086 trillion dollars: 18.8
Amount each US household would receive given 1.086 trillion dollars evenly distributed: $9443.48
Rank of defense, excluding expenditure on active military operations, among all categories of federal spending: 1
Percentage of federal spending in 2009 that went to defense: 23
Percentage of federal income in the same year that came from individual income tax: 43
Percentage that came from social security/social insurance tax: 42
Percentage that came from corporate income tax: 7
Sources:
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHTSA
Global Terrorism Database, with specific query used
The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, by the Congressional Research Service (pdf)
The three trillion dollar war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
Projections of the Number of Households and Families in the United States: 1995 to 2010, from the US department of Commerce (pdf)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
Showing posts with label numbers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label numbers. Show all posts
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
What's in a Thing?
The process of philosophy is unfortunately often an exercise in mincing words across numerous tangents while the original topic fades into oblivion; this is not surprising, as definitions tend to be important in the process of understanding. However there is a systemic fault in relying on words to define our experience, namely, that words are objectively meaningless. In order to define a word words must be used, and these words have definitions themselves; the image then is of a cloud, a highly connected network that has no foundation--it depends entirely on itself for structure, like Boyle's self flowing flask:
Suppose that a Thing starts as not understood but can become understood, and that each Thing has a definition, which is a specific collection of Things. In order to understand a Thing you must understand at least one of the Things in its definition; if a Thing has no Things in its definition, it is not understood (naturally). Do you see the problem? With this arrangement of rules understanding seems entirely impossible because each definition invariably leads to more definitions. But all is not lost.
Suppose that there is a property called self evident, which is the very special occurrence of a Thing that is in its own definition; a self evident Thing is understood by default. With the inclusion of self evidence defined Things become understandable.
What is an example of a self evident Thing? Pick a number, any number!
Foundationalist philosophers seem like proto-mathematicians--a consequence of not recognizing that self evidence doesn't need to be proven, as it is enough to simply assume for the sake of argument. In an axiomatic system, the axioms are always assumed to be true. This is not done in order to answer the questions that the axiom might pose ("do parallel lines ever cross?"), but in order to derive many more interesting implications. The geometry that most people are familiar with is Euclidean geometry, and every single fact in Euclidean geometry can be proven to be a consequence of five axioms:
The applicability of mathematics to reality is regarded as a great mystery. However, in terms of the rules above the applicability of mathematics to reality makes sense; indeed, how else might we know the universe? If there were no people around, it would be clear that reality isn't expressed in words. What we have come to know is that our experience of reality is the reception and translation of numbers and mathematical structure. When I suggest the color yellow, the thought of yellow occurs, maybe yellowish things: sunflowers, dandelions, etc, but yellow isn't defined by yellow things. What we've named yellow is actually photons oscillating with a wavelength around 570 nanometers--colors are by definition numerical, despite our experience of them as a visual cognitive phenomenon.
The case of colors is particularly interesting, because without the use of science to establish a self evident, or experimentally verifiable, numerical fact (wavelength) it is impossible to define color. There is an idea called qualia, which refers to some kind of purely subjective experience; for instance, even though most people will call a primary color by the same name, there is no guarantee that we experience the same thing. In other words, I might experience roses as what you see for the blue wavelength, but since Roses Are Red and everything I see that's called red is the same color as roses, my blue is your red. We will still agree on what items are red and what aren't, despite the fact that my subjective experience is not what you'd describe as red based on your subjective experience of light. Consider the following questions: What does pain feel like? What does a violin sound like? What does sweetness taste like? Qualia can be regarded as a word for the confusion and difficulty that comes with trying to answer these questions, particularly evident if these questions come from someone that doesn't possess the sense in concern, and thus can't gain understanding on the basis of related sensations. Qualia is still fiercely debated, and I'm not much surprised; behind every big debate there is a very ill posed question, but this doesn't imply that our experience is unquantifiable.
Consider the humble computer desktop: without a monitor, the modern desktop is apparently nothing more than a metal box that uses a lot energy in the form of electricity to warm the air. Without special tools, the only indication of activity is a light that's on when the machine is blowing out warm air, and a light that blinks at apparently random intervals when the first light is on. If this headless desktop were an alien instrument, deciphering its function would be extremely difficult. Even looking deep into the hottest part of the machine there would be perplexity abound, and a robust overwhelming with the realization that each of the over 2 billion elements might change state more than a billion times every second. Measuring the states of all of these elements at every step would be difficult given that each feature is smaller than the shortest wavelength of visible light. Even if that problem was solved, making sense of 1 second worth of data would require analyzing around 2*10^18 binary elements, which would require over 227,373 terabytes, or 222 petabytes. Even Then, the bits zooming around a CPU and patterns of gates give essentially no indication of what a computer is used for. Binary is just another way of representing quantity or number; we use decimal, which is base 10, which is kind of like saying we represent numbers with 10 different inherently meaningless symbols: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Binary is base 2, the only symbols are 0 and 1, but those symbols are equally sufficient to represent integer quantities. Thus, were you to look at the innermost workings of a CPU, what you'd see is voltages passing through a grid, sometimes changing and sometimes not. The problem is that seeing these voltages as decimal numbers wouldn't bring a modicum of sense to the madness. Even deciphering the relatively simple outbound digital video signal would be an uncanny feat; it would require a leap of imagination something like listening to Morse code and thinking that what you were hearing was actually triplets of values for a large array of photon emitters, plus whatever communication is part of the digital video standard. Some standards require two way connections, which means that before you could even draw the principal signal you'd have to have a precisely correct conversation with the machine that you're trying to figure out in the first place.
Consider the humble human being... I bet you see where this is going. Without motor function, the modern human is apparently nothing more than an elongated tube that uses water and a lot of energy in the form of food to warm the air and make fertilizer. Without special tools, the only indication of activity is from autonomic nervous function. If this were an alien instrument, deciphering its function would be extremely difficult. Even looking deep into the hottest part of the machine there would be perplexity abound, and a robust overwhelming with the realization that each of up to 100 billion elements might change state as many as 100 times every second. Assuming only full action potentials matter, and that this results in a binary signal, making sense of 1 second worth of data would require analyzing around 10^13 binary elements, which would require over 1 terabyte to store. Even Then, the bits zooming around a brain and patterns of neurons give essentially no indication of what a brain is used for. Were you to look at the innermost workings of a brain, what you'd see is voltages passing through a grid, sometimes changing and sometimes not. The problem is that seeing these voltages as decimal numbers wouldn't bring a modicum of sense to the madness. Even deciphering the relatively simple outbound analog audio signal would be an uncanny feat; it would require a leap of imagination something like looking at a continuous squiggly wave and thinking that what you were seeing was actually combinations of patterns for an abstract representation of physical phenomenon, plus whatever communication is part of the social standard. Some standards require two way connections, which means that before you could even draw the principal signal you'd have to have a precisely correct conversation with the machine that you're trying to figure out in the first place.
Is it possible to quantify the chemical senses of smell and taste? There are multiple ways on multiple scales, the most obvious: scents and flavors are particular molecules which are specific arrangements of atoms. Every atom is defined by quantities (mass, charge, etc), and the specific spatial arrangement of atoms that defines a molecule can also described mathematically... so even chemical sensation is merely an interpretation of numerical and mathematical structure. It may seem as though the mathematical definition of chocolate cake wouldn't make for much of a treat, but I'm suggesting that the mathematical definition is in fact the tasty part; there is no such thing as chocolate cake, only a variety of mathematical structures that are referred to as chocolate cake. If someone were to condense the sophisticated structure of chocolate cake down to a few succinct mathematical theorems written on a page, you wouldn't call the page chocolate cake, you'd call it a recipe; the recipe is a way to translate and understand chocolate cake, but without the quantization of the cake in some form, memorized, written, or otherwise recorded, there would be no cake. This comes across as very absurd, but consider the fact that there is no such Thing as chocolate cake; because "chocolate cake" can be interpreted as an exceedingly large range of Things, there is no objectively consistent Thing that is chocolate cake. This is different from self evident Things, which are objectively consistent; light with a wavelength of 570 nm will be light with a wavelength of 570 nm, even if you name it chocolate cake. Without a numerical level of specificity there is little assurance that everybody can and will interpret correctly.
Take the example of the aged philosophical question: "what is the meaning of life?" Perhaps the reason it has gone unanswered for so long is because it's an ill defined question--perhaps the question doesn't even make sense! Just because it is frequently repeated doesn't mean it is well defined. Do any of these similar sentences make sense?
On an almost entirely unrelated note, I was pleased to find that Google had the wisdom to include the ability to search for images free for re-use, which made it very easy to produce the above image without fear of accidentally stealing the intellectual property of some profitably litigious organization. Lately I've seen this practice of open and alternative licensing (Creative Commons, GNU General Public License, etc.) referred to as copyleft. What that means I amn't certain, but regardless this free functionality provided by Google offers me a modicum of comfort given that the FBI is apparently more concerned with copyright violation than identity theft and missing persons, as noted on /. recently. As usual the law is really too complicated for "free for re-use" to make much sense; for example the fair use doctrine, which may or may not save one's ass in court if it comes to that.
Suppose that a Thing starts as not understood but can become understood, and that each Thing has a definition, which is a specific collection of Things. In order to understand a Thing you must understand at least one of the Things in its definition; if a Thing has no Things in its definition, it is not understood (naturally). Do you see the problem? With this arrangement of rules understanding seems entirely impossible because each definition invariably leads to more definitions. But all is not lost.
Suppose that there is a property called self evident, which is the very special occurrence of a Thing that is in its own definition; a self evident Thing is understood by default. With the inclusion of self evidence defined Things become understandable.
What is an example of a self evident Thing? Pick a number, any number!
Foundationalist philosophers seem like proto-mathematicians--a consequence of not recognizing that self evidence doesn't need to be proven, as it is enough to simply assume for the sake of argument. In an axiomatic system, the axioms are always assumed to be true. This is not done in order to answer the questions that the axiom might pose ("do parallel lines ever cross?"), but in order to derive many more interesting implications. The geometry that most people are familiar with is Euclidean geometry, and every single fact in Euclidean geometry can be proven to be a consequence of five axioms:
- Two different points can be connected by one and only one line.
- A line segment can be extended to produce an infinitely long line.
- A circle can be described with a point and a radius.
- All right angles are equal to one another.
- The parallel postulate: If a line segment intersects two lines forming interior angles that sums less than two right angles, then the two lines will intersect on that side of the segment.
The applicability of mathematics to reality is regarded as a great mystery. However, in terms of the rules above the applicability of mathematics to reality makes sense; indeed, how else might we know the universe? If there were no people around, it would be clear that reality isn't expressed in words. What we have come to know is that our experience of reality is the reception and translation of numbers and mathematical structure. When I suggest the color yellow, the thought of yellow occurs, maybe yellowish things: sunflowers, dandelions, etc, but yellow isn't defined by yellow things. What we've named yellow is actually photons oscillating with a wavelength around 570 nanometers--colors are by definition numerical, despite our experience of them as a visual cognitive phenomenon.
The case of colors is particularly interesting, because without the use of science to establish a self evident, or experimentally verifiable, numerical fact (wavelength) it is impossible to define color. There is an idea called qualia, which refers to some kind of purely subjective experience; for instance, even though most people will call a primary color by the same name, there is no guarantee that we experience the same thing. In other words, I might experience roses as what you see for the blue wavelength, but since Roses Are Red and everything I see that's called red is the same color as roses, my blue is your red. We will still agree on what items are red and what aren't, despite the fact that my subjective experience is not what you'd describe as red based on your subjective experience of light. Consider the following questions: What does pain feel like? What does a violin sound like? What does sweetness taste like? Qualia can be regarded as a word for the confusion and difficulty that comes with trying to answer these questions, particularly evident if these questions come from someone that doesn't possess the sense in concern, and thus can't gain understanding on the basis of related sensations. Qualia is still fiercely debated, and I'm not much surprised; behind every big debate there is a very ill posed question, but this doesn't imply that our experience is unquantifiable.
Consider the humble computer desktop: without a monitor, the modern desktop is apparently nothing more than a metal box that uses a lot energy in the form of electricity to warm the air. Without special tools, the only indication of activity is a light that's on when the machine is blowing out warm air, and a light that blinks at apparently random intervals when the first light is on. If this headless desktop were an alien instrument, deciphering its function would be extremely difficult. Even looking deep into the hottest part of the machine there would be perplexity abound, and a robust overwhelming with the realization that each of the over 2 billion elements might change state more than a billion times every second. Measuring the states of all of these elements at every step would be difficult given that each feature is smaller than the shortest wavelength of visible light. Even if that problem was solved, making sense of 1 second worth of data would require analyzing around 2*10^18 binary elements, which would require over 227,373 terabytes, or 222 petabytes. Even Then, the bits zooming around a CPU and patterns of gates give essentially no indication of what a computer is used for. Binary is just another way of representing quantity or number; we use decimal, which is base 10, which is kind of like saying we represent numbers with 10 different inherently meaningless symbols: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Binary is base 2, the only symbols are 0 and 1, but those symbols are equally sufficient to represent integer quantities. Thus, were you to look at the innermost workings of a CPU, what you'd see is voltages passing through a grid, sometimes changing and sometimes not. The problem is that seeing these voltages as decimal numbers wouldn't bring a modicum of sense to the madness. Even deciphering the relatively simple outbound digital video signal would be an uncanny feat; it would require a leap of imagination something like listening to Morse code and thinking that what you were hearing was actually triplets of values for a large array of photon emitters, plus whatever communication is part of the digital video standard. Some standards require two way connections, which means that before you could even draw the principal signal you'd have to have a precisely correct conversation with the machine that you're trying to figure out in the first place.
Consider the humble human being... I bet you see where this is going. Without motor function, the modern human is apparently nothing more than an elongated tube that uses water and a lot of energy in the form of food to warm the air and make fertilizer. Without special tools, the only indication of activity is from autonomic nervous function. If this were an alien instrument, deciphering its function would be extremely difficult. Even looking deep into the hottest part of the machine there would be perplexity abound, and a robust overwhelming with the realization that each of up to 100 billion elements might change state as many as 100 times every second. Assuming only full action potentials matter, and that this results in a binary signal, making sense of 1 second worth of data would require analyzing around 10^13 binary elements, which would require over 1 terabyte to store. Even Then, the bits zooming around a brain and patterns of neurons give essentially no indication of what a brain is used for. Were you to look at the innermost workings of a brain, what you'd see is voltages passing through a grid, sometimes changing and sometimes not. The problem is that seeing these voltages as decimal numbers wouldn't bring a modicum of sense to the madness. Even deciphering the relatively simple outbound analog audio signal would be an uncanny feat; it would require a leap of imagination something like looking at a continuous squiggly wave and thinking that what you were seeing was actually combinations of patterns for an abstract representation of physical phenomenon, plus whatever communication is part of the social standard. Some standards require two way connections, which means that before you could even draw the principal signal you'd have to have a precisely correct conversation with the machine that you're trying to figure out in the first place.
Is it possible to quantify the chemical senses of smell and taste? There are multiple ways on multiple scales, the most obvious: scents and flavors are particular molecules which are specific arrangements of atoms. Every atom is defined by quantities (mass, charge, etc), and the specific spatial arrangement of atoms that defines a molecule can also described mathematically... so even chemical sensation is merely an interpretation of numerical and mathematical structure. It may seem as though the mathematical definition of chocolate cake wouldn't make for much of a treat, but I'm suggesting that the mathematical definition is in fact the tasty part; there is no such thing as chocolate cake, only a variety of mathematical structures that are referred to as chocolate cake. If someone were to condense the sophisticated structure of chocolate cake down to a few succinct mathematical theorems written on a page, you wouldn't call the page chocolate cake, you'd call it a recipe; the recipe is a way to translate and understand chocolate cake, but without the quantization of the cake in some form, memorized, written, or otherwise recorded, there would be no cake. This comes across as very absurd, but consider the fact that there is no such Thing as chocolate cake; because "chocolate cake" can be interpreted as an exceedingly large range of Things, there is no objectively consistent Thing that is chocolate cake. This is different from self evident Things, which are objectively consistent; light with a wavelength of 570 nm will be light with a wavelength of 570 nm, even if you name it chocolate cake. Without a numerical level of specificity there is little assurance that everybody can and will interpret correctly.
 |
| We may never know... |
- What is the meaning of rock?
- What is the meaning of light?
- What is the color of life?
- What is the interpretation of life?
- What is the sound of a vacuum?
On an almost entirely unrelated note, I was pleased to find that Google had the wisdom to include the ability to search for images free for re-use, which made it very easy to produce the above image without fear of accidentally stealing the intellectual property of some profitably litigious organization. Lately I've seen this practice of open and alternative licensing (Creative Commons, GNU General Public License, etc.) referred to as copyleft. What that means I amn't certain, but regardless this free functionality provided by Google offers me a modicum of comfort given that the FBI is apparently more concerned with copyright violation than identity theft and missing persons, as noted on /. recently. As usual the law is really too complicated for "free for re-use" to make much sense; for example the fair use doctrine, which may or may not save one's ass in court if it comes to that.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Computer Graphics
As part of my course on computer graphics this semester the class has been writing a ray tracer. The details of ray tracing aren't really worth going into, instead I'd rather share a picture (more technically a rendering) that is the result of my work.
If you are particularly learned, you'll recognize this figure as the Mandelbrot set. In case you didn't recognize it, at least you will in the future! This version in particular is really an abuse of the ray tracing engine we've developed; typically other much more efficient means are used to generate an image. However in using the ray tracer I'm able to generate images that simply couldn't be done with the more traditional methods. For instance, this rendering uses a reflection model to add an additional layer of the delicious recursiveness that characterizes fractals. Though you could do the same given the more traditional code, simply having the code alone versus a ready-made rendering program allows me to color the actual Mandelbrot set, which is almost always left black:
For the sake of completeness, here's a more traditional ray traced image that specifically includes a good variety of capabilities a ray tracing engine made in a single undergraduate semester has:
As you can tell, my cylinder code still has some issues that need to be resolved.
If you are particularly learned, you'll recognize this figure as the Mandelbrot set. In case you didn't recognize it, at least you will in the future! This version in particular is really an abuse of the ray tracing engine we've developed; typically other much more efficient means are used to generate an image. However in using the ray tracer I'm able to generate images that simply couldn't be done with the more traditional methods. For instance, this rendering uses a reflection model to add an additional layer of the delicious recursiveness that characterizes fractals. Though you could do the same given the more traditional code, simply having the code alone versus a ready-made rendering program allows me to color the actual Mandelbrot set, which is almost always left black:
For the sake of completeness, here's a more traditional ray traced image that specifically includes a good variety of capabilities a ray tracing engine made in a single undergraduate semester has:
As you can tell, my cylinder code still has some issues that need to be resolved.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
By the Numbers
I presume most people recognize that there is a vague connection between statistics and probability, but, having taken a course in probability theory, I'd be willing to bet the farm that very few people realize the full breadth of intimacy between the two. This is true in particular because despite having studied both, I'd count myself as one amongst the naive. From the outset probability is simply difficult, and often counter-intuitive. Not only does probability proceed in ways contrary to our intuition, it does so in such an amazingly tricky way! Maybe it is a function of how easy it starts out: given a typical six sided die, most everyone knows that the chance of guessing which number comes up is one in six. Easy enough, you pick one side out of a total 6, so the probability is 1/6. The common understanding of probability stops there, for the simple reason that any situation even marginally more complicated than that becomes remarkably more logically and mathematically sophisticated. Suppose I'm flipping a coin and you're guessing the results. For some reason you're having terrible luck and you've guessed wrong 10 times in a row, what's the probability that you guess the next flip wrong as well? Think about it for a minute and when you've logically arrived at what must certainly be the answer, highlight the following space for the answer: 1/2
Next, try to logically deduce the probability of guessing incorrectly for 10 coin flips in a row. Answer: 1/1024
It only gets so much worse from there, to the extent that I'm really not confident I could present the correct answers myself! Even admitting that I can't help but try for one more. Assume that 4 out of 5 people prefer Crelm toothpaste. What's the probability that from a selection of 5 people 4 of them prefer Crelm? Answer (I think): 256/625
The important notion here is that a probability says something both nebulous and concrete about reality. If a truly random die is thrown 6 million times, in all likelihood each number will have come up about 1 million times. If 4 out of 5 people really do prefer Crelm, then the chance that a randomly selected person prefers Crelm is 4/5 or 80%. As much as we all like to think that the statistics don't apply to us (because we're special), if the statistics are accurate there's no way to escape them. Most of the time this is a banal statement, as when referring to whether or not you prefer Crelm--either way it's not exactly a big deal. But then... there are the other statistics. "Around 50% of US marriages end in divorce" can be a pretty hard pill to swallow for a couple walking down the aisle. I have reason to believe the number of couples who'd figure they end up on the successful half of that statistic while exchanging vows is much higher than 50%--clearly if they thought it wasn't going to last they'd probably not be entering the commitment in the first place. Similarly, doubting the success of the marriage from the outset probably isn't going to increase the chance of a favorable outcome. What's left is an awkward position, objectively maybe the best one can think is that at least the odds aren't as bad as they could be, better than any casino game. However marriage is a particularly special case for a number of reasons, the primary one being the shift in locus of control which is applicable to all interpersonal relationships; though a bit less severe, anyone who's been dismayed by the lack of a second date (etc.) knows the score. To be fair the actual divorce rate changes based on many factors, where 50% is just the overall rate. The lowest divorce rates are found in each of the following categories: first marriage, atheist or agnostic, age 30 or older, residing in the Northeast and no cohabitation prior to marriage.
Uncontrollable statistics naturally lead to other more personally manageable probabilities. For instance, 28% of car accidents in the US happen while at least one of the drivers is using a cell phone. This is the part where I reiterate: we love to think we're special and that the statistics don't apply to us, but it just doesn't work that way. We are all special, I'm fully on board with that, but that doesn't grant any of us statistical immunity. Using a cell phone while driving (even with a hands-free headset) substantially increases the chance that you will be in a car accident, which could result in your death, or, arguably worse, the death of another/others with the accrual of manslaughter charges and the lifelong burden of knowing that you've killed someone. It's very simple: while the car is in gear, your phone doesn't exist. There are absolutely no excuses.
Next, try to logically deduce the probability of guessing incorrectly for 10 coin flips in a row. Answer: 1/1024
It only gets so much worse from there, to the extent that I'm really not confident I could present the correct answers myself! Even admitting that I can't help but try for one more. Assume that 4 out of 5 people prefer Crelm toothpaste. What's the probability that from a selection of 5 people 4 of them prefer Crelm? Answer (I think): 256/625
The important notion here is that a probability says something both nebulous and concrete about reality. If a truly random die is thrown 6 million times, in all likelihood each number will have come up about 1 million times. If 4 out of 5 people really do prefer Crelm, then the chance that a randomly selected person prefers Crelm is 4/5 or 80%. As much as we all like to think that the statistics don't apply to us (because we're special), if the statistics are accurate there's no way to escape them. Most of the time this is a banal statement, as when referring to whether or not you prefer Crelm--either way it's not exactly a big deal. But then... there are the other statistics. "Around 50% of US marriages end in divorce" can be a pretty hard pill to swallow for a couple walking down the aisle. I have reason to believe the number of couples who'd figure they end up on the successful half of that statistic while exchanging vows is much higher than 50%--clearly if they thought it wasn't going to last they'd probably not be entering the commitment in the first place. Similarly, doubting the success of the marriage from the outset probably isn't going to increase the chance of a favorable outcome. What's left is an awkward position, objectively maybe the best one can think is that at least the odds aren't as bad as they could be, better than any casino game. However marriage is a particularly special case for a number of reasons, the primary one being the shift in locus of control which is applicable to all interpersonal relationships; though a bit less severe, anyone who's been dismayed by the lack of a second date (etc.) knows the score. To be fair the actual divorce rate changes based on many factors, where 50% is just the overall rate. The lowest divorce rates are found in each of the following categories: first marriage, atheist or agnostic, age 30 or older, residing in the Northeast and no cohabitation prior to marriage.
Uncontrollable statistics naturally lead to other more personally manageable probabilities. For instance, 28% of car accidents in the US happen while at least one of the drivers is using a cell phone. This is the part where I reiterate: we love to think we're special and that the statistics don't apply to us, but it just doesn't work that way. We are all special, I'm fully on board with that, but that doesn't grant any of us statistical immunity. Using a cell phone while driving (even with a hands-free headset) substantially increases the chance that you will be in a car accident, which could result in your death, or, arguably worse, the death of another/others with the accrual of manslaughter charges and the lifelong burden of knowing that you've killed someone. It's very simple: while the car is in gear, your phone doesn't exist. There are absolutely no excuses.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
How Dangerous is the Road?
Using data from 2005, as supplied by the National Safety Council, we can add up all the number of deaths related to normal road travel, that is excluding categories such as 3-wheeled vehicles, ATV's, construction equipment, trains and so forth but including pedestrian and bicycle deaths since the vast majority of these are caused by collisions with other motor vehicles. Including the very ambiguous unspecified transportation-related category, the result is 45,180. Since the total number of external injury deaths (which excludes health related mortality such as cancer and heart disease but oddly including suicide) is 176,406, we can subtract to get the number of deaths unrelated to driving: 176,406-45,180 = 131,226. To get the percent of external injury deaths related to cars, we divide the category by the total, 45,180 / 176,406 = .2561, thus 25.61% or one quarter of the people who died from external injuries in 2005 did so because of car accidents.
However, if you choose to not consider suicide an external injury, the percentage jumps up to 31.43%, or nearly one third.
Using statistical projections from Carnegie-Mellon, we can (somewhat sloppily) extrapolate these results across all causes and by age group into the next year. We take the number of injuries in "accidental" and multiply by .3143, which is acceptable since this data doesn't include suicide in accidents. Now we divide the result by the sum of all causes for each age group, and come up with:
Age % Projected to die from motor vehicle accidents
5-9 12.59 %
10-19 14.75 %
20-29 11.98 %
30-39 7.17 %
40-49 3.86 %
50-59 1.66 %
60-69 0.71 %
70-79 0.56 %
80 0.57 %
_________________
All 1.32 %
These figures aren't necessarily very precise at all, but the general idea is the same, cars are really dangerous. Studies have shown that talking on a cell phone while driving increases the chance of a car accident by 400%, and my guess would be that there has been a substantial increase in driving while talking since 2005, suggesting a similar increase in vehicular accidents. Nonetheless, using these figures we can see that people under the age of 40 are generally more likely to die from a simple car accident than anything else. It's time to face the facts: humans are not equipped to react appropriately to everyday driving conditions - from the neurophysiological perspective we simply can't react fast enough, as the time for a neural impulse to transmit from eyes to feet is substantial enough that it is measurable with a normal watch. If you want to test this, get 5 or 10 people holding hands. The game is to have one person squeeze their neighbors hand, who is then to squeeze the next person. Another person can measure how long it takes the "pulse" to go from beginning to end; that time divided by the number of people is the average amount of time it takes to propagate a real neural impulse from one hand to the other. Again, if you do this from foot to hand (if you can manage to find enough willing people), you get maximal neural distance and it takes measurably longer. When moving at 40 mph, milliseconds make a difference, and this reaction time is not even considering the amount of distraction we have in the extremely fast paced modern era nor the amount of unpredictable obstacles (other people on cell phones) we must be aware of to be safe, which often exceeds the amount of things we can be conscious of at any moment. Add into the mix blind turns, unskilled drivers, and thousands of other impediments and there is no uncertainty in the result: people should not be allowed to drive.
We have the technology for automated vehicles, it is very doable, and now more than ever we have both the need and chance to make this a reality. Combined with the fresh and tenable (enough to get $100,000 in DOT funding for development) idea of solar panels embedded in roads, we could save many lives, increase efficiency of travel and energy, banish automotive And power plant pollution, etc. etc. Where is the downside?
Am I the only one thinking this through??
However, if you choose to not consider suicide an external injury, the percentage jumps up to 31.43%, or nearly one third.
Using statistical projections from Carnegie-Mellon, we can (somewhat sloppily) extrapolate these results across all causes and by age group into the next year. We take the number of injuries in "accidental" and multiply by .3143, which is acceptable since this data doesn't include suicide in accidents. Now we divide the result by the sum of all causes for each age group, and come up with:
Age % Projected to die from motor vehicle accidents
5-9 12.59 %
10-19 14.75 %
20-29 11.98 %
30-39 7.17 %
40-49 3.86 %
50-59 1.66 %
60-69 0.71 %
70-79 0.56 %
80 0.57 %
_________________
All 1.32 %
These figures aren't necessarily very precise at all, but the general idea is the same, cars are really dangerous. Studies have shown that talking on a cell phone while driving increases the chance of a car accident by 400%, and my guess would be that there has been a substantial increase in driving while talking since 2005, suggesting a similar increase in vehicular accidents. Nonetheless, using these figures we can see that people under the age of 40 are generally more likely to die from a simple car accident than anything else. It's time to face the facts: humans are not equipped to react appropriately to everyday driving conditions - from the neurophysiological perspective we simply can't react fast enough, as the time for a neural impulse to transmit from eyes to feet is substantial enough that it is measurable with a normal watch. If you want to test this, get 5 or 10 people holding hands. The game is to have one person squeeze their neighbors hand, who is then to squeeze the next person. Another person can measure how long it takes the "pulse" to go from beginning to end; that time divided by the number of people is the average amount of time it takes to propagate a real neural impulse from one hand to the other. Again, if you do this from foot to hand (if you can manage to find enough willing people), you get maximal neural distance and it takes measurably longer. When moving at 40 mph, milliseconds make a difference, and this reaction time is not even considering the amount of distraction we have in the extremely fast paced modern era nor the amount of unpredictable obstacles (other people on cell phones) we must be aware of to be safe, which often exceeds the amount of things we can be conscious of at any moment. Add into the mix blind turns, unskilled drivers, and thousands of other impediments and there is no uncertainty in the result: people should not be allowed to drive.
We have the technology for automated vehicles, it is very doable, and now more than ever we have both the need and chance to make this a reality. Combined with the fresh and tenable (enough to get $100,000 in DOT funding for development) idea of solar panels embedded in roads, we could save many lives, increase efficiency of travel and energy, banish automotive And power plant pollution, etc. etc. Where is the downside?
Am I the only one thinking this through??
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