With Valentine’s Day approaching, if you are wondering how many failed relationships you must endure before settling on a lasting partner, it turns out there is a mathematical formula for that.
Falcons or Patriots? Wings or nachos? And when best to take a breather from the big game? Statistics suggest it is wise to plan breaks around a high-scoring period in the final minute before half-time.
Crowd estimates from last Friday’s presidential inauguration and Saturday’s Women’s March in Washington, D.C., provoked a debate, but experts caution that counting huge numbers of people is tricky.
For some critics, the wind-chill metric, which describes how cold the air feels, is at best, misunderstood, and, at worst, misleading.
In an effort that dates to 1930, a federal program sends teams of foresters into the woods each year to take stock of American forests, measuring every tree in thousands of sample plots.
The Numbers column updates reports on emergent cicadas, recalled automobiles, pledged electoral votes and other mind-boggling topics from 2016.
Exactly how much energy an individual set of holiday lights will consume depends on the bulbs, and the difference is dramatic: The largest incandescent Christmas lights use 175 times more electricity than mini-LEDs, and even the smallest incandescent bulbs consume 10 times more energy.
Here it comes: The 17-day travel window leading up to Christmas and extending a few days into the New Year is one of the worst times for flight delays.
The Electoral College meets on Dec. 19 to formally elect Donald J. Trump president. One group believes so strongly that the president should be popularly elected that it has launched an effort to make it happen.
Researchers found that a ratings increase on travel websites led to increased demand and higher prices for hotels.
The menhaden, the largest catch pulled from the Atlantic, is at the heart of a debate between conservationists who want to protect the fish and fisheries that want to profit from it.
At unpredictable intervals, groups of oaks breed like rabbits. The bumper crops increase the likelihood that a few seedlings will reach maturity.
There’s a phenomenon recently documented by two Dutch physicians: bloodcurdling fear. When volunteers watched a scary movie their bodies released the first of a cascade of coagulating factors that normally cause blood to congeal in response to an injury.
Children who have better perception of their hands tend to be more skilled at math, research shows. You may not be counting on your fingers, but your brain is.
Mathematical models used for everything from car insurance to policing are often imperfect reflections of their creators.
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It may not seem like it, but many service providers use queuing theory, or the mathematical study of lines, to manage their customers’ waiting times.
After spending billions to reduce student-to-teacher ratios, many states are easing back and looking for other ways to improve performance.
Lawmakers shifted the fiscal year long ago to get more time for budget deals, but lately the Sept. 30 deadline is still getting missed.
Earthquake intensity measurements are more accurate than magnitude to capture what people actually feel.
An alternative ballot system used in some local elections allows votes to be shifted to another choice if the first choice doesn’t win.
The Numbers explains why you don’t necessarily have to wait a century between ‘100-year floods.’
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