چند نتیجه‌ی جالب

CHAPTER FOUR

Some interesting results

A few days later Mark walked into Rachel’s office. He put a box on her desk, and sat down.

‘What’s in there’ said Rachel.

‘Computer printouts,’ said Mark.

‘Well,’ said Rachel, ‘what have you found?’

Mark looked down at the desk. ‘Nothing really,’ he said. ‘In most areas we’ve got photographs of hands with long life lines, middle-sized life lines, and short life lines. We didn’t learn very much. You see, we haven’t got enough photographs. We’d need a thousand or more from each area of the country before we could do any real statistical analysis.’

‘But we’ve had thousands and thousands of photographs’ said Rachel.

‘Yes, but that’s from everywhere in the country,’ said Mark.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Rachel. You said in most areas there are long life lines, middle-sized life lines and short life lines, you didn’t say in all areas.’

‘There is one area but it’s silly ‘ said Mark.

‘Go on,’ said Rachel.

‘It’s only one town Chatford,’ he said.

‘Chatford’ said Rachel.

‘Yes, it’s a middle-sized town in the south-west. About 130,000 people live there. I know the town well. I used to live there, too.’

‘You used to live there’ asked Rachel. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Yes, I used to be a computer operator at the power station. That was four or five years ago, before I worked for Mervyn. Anyway, there’s a big nuclear power station, just outside Chatford. I used to work there on computers.’

‘What about Chatford’ said Rachel.

‘First, we’ve got nearly two thousand photographs from Chatford .’

‘Two thousand? Isn’t that a lot from one town?’

Yes. And it’s enough to do a statistical analysis. Look at the list these are all towns about the same size as Chatford. There are twenty-two photographs from Norwich, one hundred and eight from Oxford, ninety-three from Bournemouth, one hundred and five from Torquay, eighty-six from Brighton, forty-two from Exeter .’

‘Why did we get so many from Chatford’ asked Rachel.

‘Yes, I wanted to know that, too. It’s very easy. Mervyn’s brother owns the newspaper there, the Chatford Evening Star. He gave Mervyn a lot of free advertisements, and he wrote a lot of stories about computer palmistry for the newspaper. Mervyn comes from Chatford. I met him there. He was visiting his brother.’

‘Well, what’s strange about the photographs?’

‘It sounds silly, but more than seventy-five per cent have got short life lines,’ said Mark.

‘Did that happen in any other town?’

‘Not really. All the photographs from Norwich had long life lines. Then I looked at the addresses on the back of the photographs. We only had twenty-two, but twenty were all from the same hospital for old people. They were all from people more than eighty years old.’

‘That’s interesting, you mean all of these old people had long life lines? Maybe it’s not nonsense.’

‘Maybe,’ said Mark.

‘Anyway,’ said Rachel, ‘how short were the life lines in Chatford?’

‘I looked at each age group: under ten, ten to twenty, twenty to thirty, thirty to forty . The life lines were shorter than average in all of them. I mean, they weren’t very, very short.’

‘Were they shorter or longer than mine’ asked Rachel. She showed Mark the palm of her left hand.

Mark looked at it carefully. ‘Er . they were about the same,’ he said.

Rachel felt cold suddenly.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Mark. ‘Do you understand statistics? If you put one foot in water at 0°C, and the other foot in water at 100° ر, then statistically you’re comfortable.’

‘What’ said Rachel.

‘Well, the average temperature will be 50° ر. That’s statistics.’

Rachel looked at him. ‘Have you spoken to Mervyn about the printouts’ she asked.

‘No, you told me not to tell him,’ said Mark.

‘Good, I’ll speak to him. Can you leave the computer printouts here, Mark?’