Dirty little secret the statisticians don’t want you to know

An early 2005 “MatchstickCats.com Editorial”

Picture this.

Two cats walk into a bar. One of the cats spots himself in a mirror, becomes confused and assumes that he is already drunk. He makes his way home, cheefully counting the undimished twenty Euro that he came out with.

The other cat reaches into his fur and realises he has lost all of his own money somewhere between the bus stop and the bar, so he heads out into the street in search of some free entertainment.

Not halfway to the kerb he spot a busker, sitting on a ballister playing some melancholy thing on his harmonica. Noticing the empty whiskey bottle beside the musician, the cat settles himself down on the pavement, right beside the busker’s collection cap and in just the right place to breathe the alcolhol fumes being exhaled from the mouth organ.

It is a little known fact that cats’ brains work better when they are intoxicated.

The reason for this fact being little known, is that it is completely untrue. The cat, however, is not aware of this. And as the whiskey steams around his tiny head and body he starts to ponder the mysteries of the little world in which he lives. He comes to realise that Pi divides into itself exactly once, and is startled at his discovery. Being drunk he fails to realise that it is mindbogglinglingly obvious to anyone with even the most remote grasp of mathematics than any number will divide by itself exactly once, assuming it is offered the opportunity to do so.

Sadly though, so many of our numbers are going through their lives without ever once experiencing the pleasure of being divided, not even by themselves. Strict religious doctrine and suffocatingly conservative goverments have put a stop to this. The resulf of course is a nation of frustrated numbers, who take their unhappiness out on the innocent of our society. Hence the increase in robberies, violent assault and jaywalking that we see in the annual reports published by the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO)

Unfortunately those figures cannot be trusted either, because the numbers are of course themselves criminals. It’s a vicious circle, and it’s radius is pi time it’s radius squared, not that that’s going to help in any way.

But at least now you know.