Many people don’t know it, but my formal educational background is actually in mathematics and computer science (BS in Computer Science from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology). So while I’m far from a beautiful mind, I do once in a while noodle some stuff through with mathematics. And I’d like to submit that this breakthrough is one of my greatest.
In a nutshell, I have developed a formula which allows you to calculate (with surprising accuracy) if the person in the car next to you is a complete idiot. Introducing – The Rouse Theory:
where
The Carlin Constant is a value which is equal to approximately 1/2, based on George Carlin’s apt observation that : “Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that“.
Let’s do an example. Say that you’re trying to figure out why the person in front of you is going ten miles under the speed limit in the fast lane. Simply count the number of bumper stickers and plug it into the equation. If they have exactly one bumper sticker, it would give you:
So there is roughly a 75% chance that they’re driving that slow because they’re an idiot. While those are good odds, it’s hardly mathematically definitive. After all, there’s a 25% chance that they’re driving slow because they’re old and/or drunk and/or female.
However, let’s say that somebody came to pick you up for a blind date and you want to see right away if he’s an idiot. When he’s walking you to his car, simply count the number of bumper stickers and you can figure it out before you even start the evening. If he has five bumper stickers, you would find:
There’s a 95% chance that he’s an idiot, and you should do an immediate about face and go back inside, locking the door behind you. If you don’t want to be rude, feel free to refer him to this article.
As with all great mathematical theories, there are a few points that need to be made:
- The number of bumper stickers must be greater than or equal to one, otherwise you’d be dividing by zero. So if there are no bumper stickers, you can just go with the Carlin Constant.
- It doesn’t matter what the bumper stickers actually say. It doesn’t matter if the stickers are political or funny or pointless.
- Not everything counts as a bumper sticker. Things like having one logo emblem for a college football team, or a magnetic “We support the troops” ribbon don’t count towards the equation.
- If you notice, the Rouse Theory will never say that somebody has a 100% probability of being an idiot. No matter how many bumper stickers they have, it will bring the probability asymptotically closer to 100% but will never actually reach 100%. At some point though, you can feel safe simply say that it’s effectively 100% and that the person is without any doubt a complete idiot.
- This only counts for people over the age of 21.
So now that I’ve developed my theory, it’s up to YOU guys to help me prove it! Please to be sending me pictures of people’s cars that have bumper stickers on them, with a story of whether or not the person driving was an idiot. I will complile the submissions here and together we can help prove the theory. If I get enough evidence so that I submit it to mathematical journals, I will gladly give a footnote credit to anybody and everybody who helps me to prove the theory.
Now get out there and find me those idiots!
*If you have a ton of bumper stickers on your car and would like to try and DISPROVE my theory, I’m open to that too.
