Love Potion

‘THANKS to the living cool that is science, we have learned that everything can be expressed in the form of an equation.

”What’s the recipe for lasting love, Cher?” ”My pretending you’re someone else”

For instance, we know the code for the perfect hamburger, the formula for a perfect day at the beach and now, thanks to Professor James Murray, we know the recipe for a perfect marriage.

The Telegraph watches Murray leave his post at the University of Washington in Seattle to deliver his theory to a Mathematical Biology Conference at Dundee University.

And there were shocks ands gasps all round as the equation for domestic bliss was not revealed to be: CB + TB (E+K+N+L) = LOVE.

Instead, it is ”eye-rolling + coldness + mockery = divorce”.

That’s the headline interpretation; the actual equation is split into two parts, one for the husband and one for the wife.

Since maths became more user friendly with the arrival of GCSEs, we’ll not bore you by producing the actual equation but keep it simple and say once more that that there are two of them.

And that, thanks to his work, the Professor now claims to have a 94% success rate when it comes to forecasting whether or not a couple are compatible.

Of course, British youth have little truck with the numbers game.

They should stick to the tried-and-tested formula: ”I’m yours for a bottle of alcopop and a go on your stolen scooter.”

‘

Posted: 8th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink