This professor claims to have created a formula for finding ‘The One’

A lecturer taking part in this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures claims to have uncovered the secret to finding ‘The One’. And apparently, it’s all mathematical! Dr Hannah Fry's lecture ‘How to Get Lucky’ will air on BBC Four on Boxing Day, and will feature live experiments to explore the secrets of luck. One of the subjects she’ll discuss is the rocky world of dating.

Describing her equation for finding ‘The One’, she explains, "This formula has the power to tell you exactly how many people to reject to give you the best possible chance of finding your perfect partner.

"It tells you that if you are destined to date 10 people in your lifetime, you have the highest probability of finding The One when you reject your first four lovers – where you’d find them 39.87 percent of the time.

"If you are destined to date 20 people, you should reject the first eight, where Mister or Miz Right would be waiting for you 38.42 percent of the time. And, if you are destined to date an infinite number of partners, you should reject the first 37 percent, giving you just over a one in three chance of success."

Hannah is an Associate Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL. She also fronted a three-part documentary series on BBC Four in 2018 called Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry’s Mysterious World of Maths.

The lectures – held every Christmas in London on a single topic – first started back in 1825. They began to be televised in 1966. You can catch Dr Hannah’s one-hour lecture 'How to Get Lucky' (part of the 2019: Secret & Lies - The Power of Maths) at 8pm 26th, 27th and 28th December on BBC Four.

Other lectures in the series from Dr Hannah will include ‘How to Bend the Rules’ (exploring ‘How algorithms have taken over our lives and now control almost everything we do’) and ‘How Can We All Win?’ (exploring ‘how far we should be going with our mathematical skills’.)

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