Ten days passed and a farmer in
Milton Lilbourne, Wiltshire pulled a balloon out of the hedge that
separated his fields from his neighbour's house.
He noticed the name of Laura Buxton. As this was the name of his
neighbour's daughter he handed over the balloon straight away, thinking
it must belong to her. But this was a different Laura Buxton, though
she was also ten years old, but she lived 140 miles away from the girl
who had released the balloon. [from early reports of the incident]
Tori: Bravo! A point to note that affects the probability calculations:
the second Laura* did not find the balloon!
Mystics will not be bothered that it’s marginally more likely that a
finder knows a Laura Buxton rather than is LB.
* I almost wrote ‘not the original Laura’ to add a Nabokovian touch to
the coincincidence.
I must add, briefly, that I don’t expect to learn mathematics, science,
history, politics, economics or philosophy from Nabokov’s fiction. VN’s
allusions to such are of passing interest, but I have more up-to-date,
more dedicated, better-informed sources.
A possible analogy: I read Genesis and Pale Fire with the same
spine-tingling impact.
PS: You’ll probably know (better than I do) the latest edition of
Dawkins’s Blind Watchmaker. He makes some sound observations on
mimicry. How it helps hunter as well as hunted. How we can only guess
what advantages mimicry affords (we don’t get to see the prey through
the predators’ eyes, especially under diverse lighting conditions. Even
a small, occasional advantage can improve survival.)
Stan Kelly-Bootle, MAA, AMS