Think of a number!
by Herr Ed
We’re all well acquainted with those lists of amazing facts which are trotted out for big sporting events. For example, prior to Wimbledon several periodicals (every year without fail) will inform us that an “incredible” 856,000 strawberries and 75,000,000 tonnes of cream will be eaten over the tennis fortnight!
Of course these stats are utterly boring and meaningless, and a zero or three could be added to any figure without the reader being the slightest bit amazed: statistics like this do not resonate with the human mind. Our distant ancestors were only concerned with small numbers, such as how many wives they had, and how many woolly mammoths they had killed that day. Therefore modern human brains, hardwired by evolution, can discern nothing remotely interesting about the aggregation of thousands of prosaic actions undertaken by a faceless mass of people.
But anyway, enough of the science: here are WCH’s amazing World Cup 2006 facts.
- 24,821,126 cups of tea will be consumed at half-time in England during their first game against Paraguay. If this tea was frozen into a sphere, it would be the same size as the Death Star.
- 48 Americans will take a keen interest in World Cup 2006.
- A staggering 200,000,231 gallons of water will be sprayed on the World Cup pitches by groundsmen this summer. If a single person drank this much water, they would urinate continuously for an amazing 4356 years!
- 6,312,436,857 people in the world will be really bored if Brazil win the World Cup again.
- FIFA officials will consume a staggering 2.8 tonnes of Belgian veal in free lunches during the finals.
- 3,012,012 extra units of dopamine will be generated in people’s brains during the final. If this could be sustained, global socialism would be possible.
- An incredible 5.1263e34 words will be written and spoken in commentary on the games of the World Cup finals, more than all the words ever spoken and written by homo sapiens thus far.
- 67% of the world’s population will not even be aware that the football tournament is taking place.
- 0 - the number of goals Portuguese striker Pauleta will score during the tournament.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:49 am
If weedkiller is to be sprayed on the World Cup pitches, I hope it is clever weedkiller that can distinguish between the weeds and the grass otherwise we may see some matches being played on brown mud-pitches the likes of which would make the Chelsea Groundsman envious.
Also my cousin is marrying an American and gaining American citizenship this summer so the figure above may need to be revised to 49.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:34 am
One of the Americans currently interested in the World Cup is predicted to die in May so the number will still probably be correct.
March 29th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
I think Herr Hippo may have made an error regarding the size comparison of frozen cups of tea/Death Star.
I calculated that 24,821,126 cups of tea (at 250ml per cup) would make a ‘Death Star’ only 22.84m in diameter.
According to official sources*, the Death Star is 120,000m in diameter, dwarfing this, so called, ice-tea star. I estimate 3.62 trillion cups of tea (at 250ml per cup) would be needed to make an ice-tea Death Star.
I have, however, come up with some options which would spare Herr Hippo’s numerical blushes.
Tea cup capacity could be a little over 36,000 litres per cup.
Herr Hippo could have been referring to a frozen *hollow* sphere of comparable size to the Death Star, then such an ice-tea star would be a mere 138 nanometres thick.
The final alternative being that Herr Hippo was referring to some other, less popular Death Star, about which, little is known. Given that Herr Hippo used the term ‘The Death Star’ one can assume that he was referring to the most popular Death Star, that being the one featured in the Star Wars series of motion pictures, and that this alternative can be safely ruled out.
*http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/deathstar/
March 29th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
If the human mind struggles with such large numbers should the papers when they cover wimbeldon simply say, ‘we can expect at least 2 punits of strawberries and 4 canisters of cream to have been devoured over the fortnight?’ If not, why not?
March 29th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Why mention numbers at all Bill?
Why not some strawberries and some cream?
March 29th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Why strawberries?
March 30th, 2006 at 7:31 am
Why mention anything at all, why not just say:
- ‘fruit and dairy has been consumed over the fortnight’
or
- ‘patrons have been eating at Wimbledon when they where here’
March 30th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Why mention anything? Why record the mundane minutiae of human existence?
So other humans in generations to come can compare their own minutiae with ours?
To sate our own craving for knowledge, no matter how useless and meaningless?
So Steve Wright can smugly spout more ‘factoids’ on his Radio 2 afternoon show, like some Grand Prophet of Inanity?
March 30th, 2006 at 10:58 am
How many strawberries will Steve Wright consume during the World Cup?
April 1st, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Steve Wright is allergic to strawberries. Rare white strawberries do not contain the allergen protein so he can safely eat them. He intends to eat 15 of them during the world cup. But only if he can find any in his local Lidl.
April 1st, 2006 at 3:35 pm
A staggering 100,000 marks out of ten will be given by tabloid newspapers around the globe. Peter Crouch will get 7 of these.
April 3rd, 2006 at 11:58 am
The BBC are hoping to break the World Record for ‘Largest Number of Panellists for a World Cup match’ when Tunisia play Saudi Arabia. The current record is 268.
Draft list of panellists available on request.
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I wish the tabloid press would stay out of football, look at the trouble they cause, history is littered with examples.. Why can’t people buy better news papers?? Jim