The speaker discusses the application of mathematics in various fields, including romance and sex. They present equations that model successful marriages, predicting with 95% accuracy whether newlyweds will be together in six years. The equations suggest that couples who compromise the least and have high standards tend to have more successful marriages. The speaker also touches on the psychology of love and sex, discussing how men and women report their number of sexual partners and how this can be influenced by counting strategies.
Additionally, the speaker explores how thinking about love or sex can affect problem-solving skills, with love improving global thinking and sex improving local thinking. They also delve into the origins of mathematics, suggesting that it is a fundamental part of human cognition, with roots in the animal kingdom. The speaker argues that mathematics is a powerful tool that can be applied to various aspects of life, including sex, and that it is a universal language that can transcend cultural and linguistic barriers.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. Equations have been developed that model a successful marriage, predicting with 95% accuracy whether newlyweds will be together in six years.
2. These equations take into account how each partner responds to the other, including body language.
3. Research has found that couples who respond the least to each other have a better chance of a successful marriage.
4. Compromising the least in a relationship can lead to a longer-lasting partnership.
5. Mathematics is being used in various fields, including romance and relationships.
6. Since the 1980s, mathematics has ventured into stock market analysis, risk analysis, and softer sciences like psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
7. New mathematics appears every day, with recent research including the study of antibiotic use and the spread of opinions through a population.
8. A study found that men report having had sex with two to four times as many women as women report having had sex with men.
9. This discrepancy is attributed to counting strategy, with women prone to underestimation and men prone to overestimation.
10. Research has found that thinking about sex before doing mathematics can improve problem-solving skills, particularly in the process part of problem-solving.
11. Pattern recognition is a fundamental aspect of the animal kingdom, and even reptiles and jellyfish exhibit pattern recognition abilities.
12. The seeds of the number concept are also present in the animal kingdom, with some animals able to recognize greater or lesser quantities.
13. Rats can be taught to press a lever an approximate number of times to get food, demonstrating their innate number sense.
14. Language is more than just naming things; it also enables cause and effect and temporal reasoning.
15. Mathematics is a precise use of syntactical understanding, with no ambiguity at each step.
16. Mathematics is being used in various aspects of life, from physics and engineering to romance and relationships.