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
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.