Long Division - Jan 9 2022

 

Long Division

Jan 9 2022

They say there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

But by the law of large numbers

and the wisdom of crowds

we also find truth

and reveal hidden meaning.

Yet in a world understood by fractions

you are whole;

an ordinal number,

as indivisible

as prime.

But not a statistic.

Because there are no probabilities

with an n of 1,

just the odds

of either/or

all or none.

The biopsy comes back

pass or fail;

either you're in the clear

or you have it.

You step over the edge

and there's no 2nd chance;

gravity

is inexorable

the stop at the bottom the end.

Marriages fail, divorces happen

at a rate, more or less

of 50%.

But when she left

it was for good.

No matter how much you pled, begged, protested

and promised you'd change

she would not be swayed;

it's all for the best, she persisted,

although more likely meant

numbers don't change

they are absolute.

Subtraction hurts.

You can count wrong

count down

count out,

but no longer on her.

And long division kills.

Like dividing by zero

the answer is undefined,

leaving you

as the smallest remainder

feeling lost and suicidal.

“There are lies, damned, lies, and statistics,” as the saying goes, one often – but probably incorrectly – attributed to Mark Twain. But that's about statistics being used to intentionally mislead. For the statistically literate and suitably skeptical, statistics – or, to put it another way, big data – can illuminate and guide. Nevertheless, when we speak of averages and normals, none of us actually are: we are not odds, we are either/or. As he poem says, you can't make any predictions with a sampling of 1.

This poem began after reading a lot about statistics and big data: both defences and warnings, the advantages and dangers. In a more personal sense, I've always been aware that a statistical average has little meaning in my own life: I'm somewhat neurodivergent (perhaps we all are!), so focusing on averages just leads to comparison, which doesn't do anyone much good.

The folly of statistics comes up in medical practice when you have to explain the odds of an outcome: yes, the numbers inform decision making; but ultimately, for the individual it's either 100 or zero. (And I guess, ultimately, zero for all of us, because we're all dead in the end!)

I've never been married or divorced. And I realize that relationships are not binary things, even though for the sake of the poem it's depicted that way. So I'm not sure what led me in this direction. But I'm sure we can all identify with the feeling after a break-up. Even if “suicidal” is a little (a lot?) hyperbolic!

I've written lots of physics poems before, but never a math poem. And I'm not at all good at math. So I hope the cognoscenti will excuse any mistakes. Poetic licence, after all.

(For those of you who, like me, are math-challenged, this example should explain why the word “undefined” (the actual technical term, not my chosen word) is used here: if dividing 1 by 0 equals a, then that must mean a x 0 = 1; and nothing multiplied by zero can give you anything but zero.)