"So much happens to us on a daily basis, that we have a million experiences about every 35 days. The idea that something is a one-in-a-million experience means also that it's a once-a-month occurrence."
- David McRaney, author of the book "You Are Not So Smart." Professor John Edensor Littlewood of Cambridge University decided to apply cold mathematical reasoning to the concept back in 1955.
He assumed that a miracle is a one-in-a-million event. He also surmised the average human will witness one event per second during the eight hours each day when they are fully "alert".
This mean you will witness a million events roughly every 35 days - and the law of averages says one of these will be "miraculous".
Yes, it's little more than a maths joke - and Littlewood did far more - and more important work - in his career until his death at 92 in 1977.
The volume in which its contained - a Mathematicians' Miscellany - is in fact a spritely little book uncovering the fun and occasional wisdom of life gleamed from studying maths at Trinity College, Cambridge.
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