Dr Clio Cresswell Author, Mathematics and Sex

Yes, I am the mathematician who is going to get you so laid.

And to begin, I need you to stare at this equation.
Wt+1 = a + r1Wt + Ihw (Ht)
Ht+1 = b + r2Ht + Iwh (Wt)
I mean, theres your first orgasm right there, I know it.
But these are very sophisticated equations that model a successful marriage. And theyre
groundbreaking equations because it was the first time that truly sophisticated
mathematics was used in the field of romance. And they predict with 95% accuracy rate
whether newlyweds will be together in six years time.
And you can see there is the W for wife and the H for husband. So, they modeled
newlyweds talking about areas of contention like the in-laws or money. And then they
modeled the responses according to how each partner was responding to the other. Body
language as well.
And what came out was this interesting influence factor at the end there, which actually
revealed that couples that responded the least to each other had a better chance of a
successful marriage. So that means I see some people are like, We knew that.
So, couples that compromised the least ended up being together the most. And this was
very interesting because a lot of therapy has been based on empathy. And you laughed
before, so maybe you dont say when you partner comes home, Yes darling, I know. Let
me rub your feet and fix you a martini. Because what theyve actually found is that might
not be the best way forward. Maybe the best way, or the mathematics revealed, that
having high standards and finding ways to reach for those standards is in fact the way to
go.
So mathematics is the study of patterns. All the symbols that you see are in fact patterns,
you know, encapsulating patterns. And were very used to seeing mathematics being used
in physics and engineering. Thats just because its been there the most. You know, E
equals mc squared. Thats so early 1900s. Theres actually been an evolution.
Since the 80s weve seen mathematics venture into stock market analysis, risk analysis
that was new. And then since the 1990s or 2000s even, were seeing mathematics enter
into the sometimes called Softer Sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology,
biology.
And so new mathematics appears every day. So I brought in a few just to remind you of
how that works.
So heres some latest research. This is looking at antibiotic use and how to implement
antibiotics for tuberculosis while getting the patient healthy, but making sure that we avoid

antibiotic resistance. That came out a couple of weeks ago. And this is looking at how an
opinion spreads through a population. And when will you have the coexistence of several
opinions, or one big consensus.
One of my favorites, its a little bit older but I couldnt resist. This one is from 2009 and this
is how to create the perfect chocolate. One that melts in your mouth but not in your hand.
And yes, these are very sexy equations, Im sure youll agree.
Anyway, Mathematics is absolutely everywhere these days; its being used everywhere. So
it really is no surprise that now were seeing the equations for love.
Now, love sucks. I know you all know that. Because, yes, youre excited at first. But then
youre scared. Oh, my god. I havent eaten. Youre sitting looking at your phone, Please
ring! Please ring! Then they send you a two-word text. And youre like, Whoo-hoo! Its on
like Donkey Kong.
And so these equations look at which personality traits are more likely to come together to
have a more stable companionship type love because some people it just ends up being
up and down continuously. I mean imagine being in a relationship with Charlie Sheen. That
would be like well, unlike Donkey Kong and also like this. It gets a bit out of control
mathematically quite fast. So just to tell you, its about one thing to look out for is if your
partner if you overestimate your partners qualities.
So with partners we can behave a bit like proud parents. Hes so smart. Hes so sexy.
And everyones just staring at this guy like
Anyway, heres some more mathematics. Now, men report, on average, having had sex
with two to four times as many women than women do men. And this does not make
sense. It doesnt.
I know youre all thinking, But what about prostitutes?
Another girl But what about my ex? Hes slept with everybody.
No, every time a man has sex with a woman there are averages for other things But
in a large enough sample space its going to be about the same, not off like this.
So heres an example. Heres Charlie Sheen. Hes had sex with everyone.
Then the next guy, only one. One, one, one. And that forces, you see, the outcome for the
women. The first ones had one. The others have had 2 partners each. And 2, 4, 6, 8, 9. 9
divided by 5 and on the right 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 9 divided by 5. Every time a man has sex with a
woman its adding to the general tally of both sides.
Now, why is this discrepancy? Because the surveys are confidential and non-identifying, it
turns out, if you ask about kinky things, people are very honest.

What weve turned to is we think its counting strategy. Because if you enumerate youll be
prone to an underestimation. If you approximate youll be prone to an overestimation. So it
seems women are going, Justin, Brad, the guy with the sexy biceps. The end.
And men are going, 20 a year for the last 5 years. You know.
My favorite clue in all the data was that 80% of mens results were divisible by 5.
So, of course the mathematicians are like, Yeah, no, youre lying.
Back to some more waves. Of course, there are waves in womens hormones. And these
equations look at what kind of mechanism is in a womans body how does your body
know 28 days have gone by? And its based on understanding why women have all their
immature eggs at birth ready to go. We hear so much about womens hormones, so Ive
brought in mens as well.
These are These are real. Im not making them up. This model, the relationship
between the brain and the testes as the fluctuation happens during the day. I promise
these are real.
Testosterone, for example, has a peak in the morning and a slump in the evening. But
theres actually a mini testosterone peak every 2 to 2.5 hours in between. So, you know
what that means, especially women. If you ask a guy a favor and hes not responding just
wait half an hour and ask again, just try and just try and get that slump moment. Its got
its purposes. Though the peak has another purpose as well.
Yes, this is all great fun and I could carry on with fun maths and sex problems for hours.
But ultimately, what Im about is our amazing brain and the impact of abstract thinking and
the power of abstract thinking.
And so let me turn things a little bit around on you and say, what do you think happens if
you think about sex before doing mathematics? Because its actually not super distracting.
Youll actually become better at doing certain types of brain processes. It turns out theres
two fundamental types of brain processes. You either think globally or locally. Forest or
trees. And when youre solving a problem, you often start with the global kind of analysis
and then you have to dig in deep and follow leads to solutions.
And it turns out that were now seeing with the latest research that this is linked to creative
versus analytical thinking. And more than that were finding that its actually very easily
manipulated. So, if you get people to think about love and then solve problems theyll be
better at the globalization, the beginning, the creative part.
And if you get people to think about sex they get better at the process part of the problem
solving. Easy as that.
And heres the bigger question that interests me. What is this thing called mathematics
thats only been going for about 2,000 years that popped up independently across the
world that so many people swear they cant do? See, theres something thats not quite

reconciling there. You cant have something thats developed so recently with some people
just having an extra brain bit. No, that doesnt make sense. Its about finding those right
triggers.
Heres a school report card of mine in French. My parents are these wild, wild travelers
always looking for wild parties. Im actually the conservative offspring of some crazy wild
people. As you see, we lived in Cannes, whatever. Great parties there. But more
importantly, you can see two out of 20 for mathematics. And my best result was 15 for
Travaux Manuels et Technique which is woodwork.
So its very clear to me what life is like without mathematics. Once I found mathematics at
18 when I came to Australia, it was the first time that I was connecting to something pure,
to something that was so amazing. You see, pattern recognition is right at the core of the
animal kingdom. You see, even reptiles recognize whether its something to eat, fight or
have sex with. Even a jellyfish knows which way is up and which way is down.
Now the seeds of the number concept are also very much part of the animal kingdom. A
pack of animals will recognize whether another pack is greater than theirs. And you can
actually teach a rat to press a lever an approximate number of times to get food.
Now, you see how I use the word approximate. Thats because the rat doesnt have selfawareness or a linguistic ability to capture, tame those innate sensations. So if the rat is
just tapping three times 1, 2, 3 it will kind of get it right. But once it gets to 16, the poor
little rat is tapping away, it doesnt know where its reaching. And in fact, its the same with
us. If you do an experiment where we cant count out well make exactly the same
mistakes as the rat.
Now we went further.
We went to things like 2 + 5 = 5 + 2. I can swap the order of things and still reach the same
result.
We went further still.
A+B=B+A
I can substitute any of the infinite number of numbers that Im now aware of in that formula
and it means the same thing. You see, language is more than just naming things. With it,
we also got cause and effect and temporal reasoning.
And you see, Mathematics is our most precise use of this syntactical understanding.
Because with mathematics at each step that youre creating the pattern linking discovery,
theres no ambiguity. It is very precise what youre doing at each step, what is in each
classification. True or false. Thats it. In the box or outside the box. Its very clear, ultimate
precision. And that is why mathematics is so powerful and being used more and more right
through to sex. And thats why its so hard because youre using the limits of our evolution
right to their extreme. Were using, were taming those innate sensations with the most
ultimate precision we can.

Mathematics as you can see, its just whats so breathtaking is that it emerged
independently across the globe. And when people came together in peace or war they
may have clashed when it came to religion, cultures, languages, but their mathematics, or
pure pattern recognition just meshed.
You see, mathematics lies right at the roots of humanity. Like sex, it transcends human
culture. And now that Ive shared that with you, you are the sexiest ladies in town.