Birds, Mozart, austerity, Thatcher
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This week on the BBC's More or Less programme, Tim Harford is back with nearly half an hour's worth of numbery goodness. And in this download edition, we're going to try something a bit different. We're going to start with brand new items on whether it's possible to count how many birds die flying into windows and the numbers behind Mozart's The Magic Flute, before moving on to cover the Reinhard Rogoff spreadsheet mistake and Mrs Thatcher by numbers in new, longer versions.
Hello and welcome to a brand new series of More or Less, the programme which serves up more numbers than a catering tin of Numberetti spaghetti. This week, we bring you a statistical verdict on the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. We look at the mathematics of Mozart and we raise a quizzical eyebrow at David Mitchell's BBC Radio 4 quiz show, The Unbelievable Truth. In America each day, over two million birds die crashing into window panes. But first... Spring has finally sprung. But oh no! There I was in my kitchen with the family, listening to the Radio 4 quiz, The Unbelievable Truth. As you may know, the aim of the game is to deliver a hilarious monologue on a given topic, almost all of which is false, and to smuggle five implausible truths cunningly concealed amidst the lies.
And one of the unbelievable truths which made it past the panellists was this. In America, each day, over two million birds die crashing into window panes. And at the end of that round, Mark, you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel. The second truth is that in America, each day, over two million birds die crashing into window panes. But I just found this unbelievable. Charlotte MacDonald, I said. This is one for a statistical sleuth like you.
And, well, the story starts in 1990. That year we were all dancing about to this kind of thing.
Is this relevant?
I'm just setting the scene for you.
Stop.
And out in the US, an ornithologist was writing an article called Collisions Between Birds and Windows. He reasoned that there are a lot of buildings in the US and that most buildings have windows. So he looked up the number of buildings in the whole country using US Bureau of Census data.
And how many were there?
About 100 million. He then thought, if we assume that over a year, between 1 and 10 birds will hit windows on every building in the country and die... How many birds would that be?
So that's multiplication plus assumption. Very neat. And so the fact was born that between 100 million and a billion birds die in the US each year hitting windows.
Yes, it features on a bird guide website, and that's where the Unbelievable Truth team found it. They then took the highest number, a billion dead birds, divided it by 365 days, and got their figure of more than two million a day. But I've spoken to leading bird window collision expert, Professor Daniel Clem, and he thinks people shouldn't quote this number as if it was some kind of solid fact.
He's just one expert, and experts do disagree.
Yes, but Professor Daniel Clem is the ornithologist who came up with the number in the first place.
I don't believe that anyone should take those figures as facts. There was some quantitative basis behind it, but it wasn't to the level that one would consider those figures to be facts. It's probably likely, but I don't think any reasonable person should be using those figures as facts until we have more supportive evidence.
Frankly, I'm shocked. What is the point of having a Radio 4 panel game built on truth and lies if the truths aren't true? Yeah, I know. That's what the news is for. David Mitchell, I trusted you. And Charlotte, thank you. I still trust you. Mozart's final opera, The Magic Flute, premiered just ten weeks before the composer's death and was the biggest popular hit of his life. With its pantomime storyline and catchy tunes, it's said to be one of the most accessible operas for the uninitiated. But there's an awful lot going on beneath the jokes and the musical notes. Oxford professor Marcus de Sautoy recently spoke at London's Royal Opera House about what he finds in The Magic Flute as a mathematician.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:44
2
Are the often-cited '2 million birds a day' US window-collision deaths credible?
4:44–11:27
3
How was the original US estimate of 100 million–1 billion bird deaths per year calculated?
11:27–17:06
4
Why do experts warn against quoting the bird-window death figure as a fact?
17:06–21:38
5
What mathematical patterns does Mozart's The Magic Flute contain?
21:38–28:26