The Birthday Problem is not about who to invite to your birthday party. Nor is about whether to serve cake or ice cream (answer: both). Rather, it’s something to do with numbers.

Me, I am all about number of presents. Number of parties. Number of people attending said parties. Those numbers I understand. I am not a math person.  I teach writing. I had to get my brother’s help to offer even a semblance of math literacy on the GRE’s.

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Yet, apparently math folks have this probabilities question exploring how many people in the room will share the same birthday. (Of course, if you’ve the chart showing birthday frequencies, you might be ahead of the game). Dr. Math even has several archived probability problems with birthdays involved.

Also for you quantitatively minded, or “birthamathophiles,” here’s Jon Plotkin’s post about roots, squares and other words that make me glaze over. Those who are more patient than me will enjoy (yes, the number of people who qualify as more patient is very, very big). He discusses “The Perfect Birthday” and points to 6 and 28. I was born on the 6th. One more reason my birthday’s perfect? I’ll take it!

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