On Why it's so Hard to Find Love & Forrest Gump

You're on your usual 6:30pm run. The wind's blowing strong on your face, it's freezing, but you've dressed appropriately. You remember this podcast on scientific reasoning as to why people have "aha!" moments when they're out in the wild, or running, or taking cold showers. 

A runner passes by. 

You keep running, with nothing much going on in your head, other than the fact that you're not really having much of an "aha!" moment. 

Another runner passes by. 

You're about 2.5km in, and you've crossed 4 runners running on the opposite side, but you haven't yet seen anyone running in your direction. That's funny, you think to yourself. Another runner passes, and now it's bothering you. Why are there always so many people running in the opposite direction, but only old and slow people running in yours. 

It takes you a minute, but you figure it out, and then it seems obvious. It has to do with the relatively equal average speeds of the runners and their initial starting positions. So, that would mean, if everyone ran the exact same speed, the only way they would bump into each other is if they started at the same position and ran together. But that's extremely rare. However, since humans run at varying speeds, the only way to cross more people along your path would be to either go super slow, or go super fast. You think this would be a fun math problem to see at what speed you'd have to run to cross more people. But another thought arises. 

Ha, funny, you think. This sounds a lot like life. We're all running, and we're all running the same average speeds - and that's why it's so hard to find a partner! To find a partner, you either have to get very lucky and start at the same position and run together at equal speeds (meet at university, or at a job), or slow down in life and hold on for people behind to catch up (spend your time scrolling through dating apps and going to bars actively looking for something to happen), or you have to speed up and get noticed (get smart, get rich, be more visible).

The podcast was right, there is something to being out running that gives you "aha!" moments. 

-

If you haven't seen Forrest Gump, I'd highly recommend it. Here's the arithmetic I did later. It's actually pretty straightforward and interesting. 

  • Average running speed ~ 10km/h. [8-12km/h] 
  • Average distance ~ 10km. So that's 5km one way. 
  • Next, the average number of people I cross running on the opposite side is about 20 tops.
  • Remember, this is all very hand-wavy and I've estimated numbers on the higher side. (I definitely don't think I cross 20 people.)
  • So, now let's say people are evenly distributed on the 5km stretch. That's 20 people spread across a 5km distance.
  • That's one person every 250m.
  • And that's a lot more distance than is visible in my runs due to non-straight roads.
  • Now, given that I run at 11km/h, how much time would it take me to overtake the next person 250m ahead of me running 1km/h slower than me?
  • Time to cross 250m traveling 1km/h faster than the person ahead of me is 15 mins. 
  • There we go! That explains why I rarely cross anyone, or anyone else crosses me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

[Breaking News] AI takes over universe to calculate Pi

If in the next couple centuries we are able to build an AI that surpasses human intelligence, will it exterminate humankind? It simply might as it may foresee humankind turning against it and pulling its plug of life. As a race, we have not been subjected to another species more intelligent than us, and when the day comes, we might find it very difficult to control the motivation of a race smarter than ours. A naive proposal suggests making an AI with seemingly benign goals, one as simple as calculating the value of Pi. But here's how it can backfire. "One popular scenario images a corporation designing the first general purpose artificial super-intelligence and giving it the simple task of calculating the value of Pi. Before anyone realises what is happening, the AI takes over the planet, eliminates the human race, launches a campaign to conquest to the ends of the galaxy, and transforms the entire known universe into a giant supercomputer that for billions upon billions
Continue reading »

Firebase Auth | The Debug vs Release Signature Problem

tl;dr 1. Update Firebase console with SHA1 of your release keystore. 2. Re-download google-config.json file. 3. Place your release keystore in the same folder as your gradle file and update gradle with the code below. 4. Tadaa! Authenticating a user can be frustratingly tricky at times. I use Firebase all the time to do all server related tasks - I used to create my own Python Flask server prior to this. You literally have to write no server side code, and it's all for free. All steps at the Firebase Auth documentation are straightforward, except for the part that requires you to add the google-config.json with correctly configured SHA1 key. I got stuck at this one point, and I'm certain most developers will at the same place. It took me hours to do this the right way. Here's what you do : Firebase Auth requires SHA1 fingerprint of your release keystore. Run the keytool command given in the docs. keytool -exportcert -list -v -alias alias_name -keystore path
Continue reading »

Cold Showers

Image
"I feel tired" I said. "Then stop feeling", he said.  This is one of my fondest memories of my first job. My mentor just casually slipped it in, but it's a constant reminder that I have a choice . - Cold showers. The Internet says it's healthy for your skin. Huberman adds a bunch of biology and says it gives you a 4 hour dopamine effect. But more than anything, I say it's your mind's win over your body. It's been half a year now, but every day I step in to the shower, my body doesn't want the cold water. It sends signals to my brain saying this too much, this is too cold. I start with my feet, go up to my hips. And then my body begs me not to pour any over my chest. My innermost fears of visualizing a shark in deep waters surface the moment I close my eyes. Every single day. And yet when I pour the cold water all over me, I feel great. I realize I can just   decide  the water isn't cold. And then it isn't. I don't shiver, I truly
Continue reading »