Addition
Some big developments coming in just now for Jimmy, who we’ve been following all night. Jimmy has been holding onto three apples. Those are safe apples. But we can now report Jimmy’s friend, Betsy, has given Jimmy four of her apples– you heard me right, four.
It’s still early, but if the projections hold—and they should—Jimmy now sits comfortably at seven apples. And keep in mind there are more of Jimmy’s friends with apples who have not yet reported in. And already Jimmy is sitting at seven, which is four more than three. Not a huge margin, but a significant one. So a surprising gain there for Jimmy.
Subtraction
Let’s go to the Big Board now. What you’re seeing here is your hand, which is pretty reliably a region that has five fingers. Let me zoom in so we can get a better look. There, you see: one, two, three, four, five fingers.
But let’s take a look into our crystal balls as I bring up a projection. Watch what happens when we take away one of those fingers… Suddenly, we’re looking at four fingers, which is a very different landscape for your hand. But what’s more striking is that this projection holds true for both the right and left hands, so this is not a one-sided issue. I know it sounds stunning, but it’s just math.
We’ll have to keep an eye on that one.
Multiplication
I want to turn to our times tables for a second. Historically, this chart has predicted the outcome with 100% accuracy. You see here, we got “2 x 2 = 4,” “2 x 4 = 8,” “2 x 5 = 10,” and so on. So we’re definitely seeing a kind-of “doubling” pattern there.
But, hey, we all know these days nothing is “predictable.” This chart doesn’t account for some major outliers. Take “0,” for example. We plug that in and boom! “2 x 0?” Zero. “3 x 0?” Zilch. “4 x 0?” You guessed, zero again. That upward trend we were seeing just utterly plateaus.
A tough night if you’re rooting for zeros.
So we see the danger there in relying too much on the historical data. You might get some irrational turnouts, which is surprising considering these integers are literally rational.
Geometry
Forgive me, but I’m going to interrupt you, because I'm getting some seismic transformations among triangles.
The previous borders of this shape, as you can see, were an even split among its three sides. Us wonks like to call it an “equilateral triangle.” We love our jargon.
But now that triangle has shifted to two different lengths and is, frankly, deeply isosceles. And that’s nothing compared to this triangle here, which, thanks to redistricting, now has an entire other side. Yah. Do not adjust your set, America. You are looking at square. In 2022. In America.
Division
An instructive case here is Judy’s birthday cake, which after redistricting has been cut up into 12 slices, while the most recent census lists the population of Judy’s birthday at six friends. Based on what we know about the breakdown of cake at Judy’s past birthdays, we’re going to give each friend an equal number of slices. That gives us two slices each.
Pretty cut-and-dry, right? Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for the demographic breakdown of Judy’s birthday party, mail-in gifts, children who were turned away at the plate because they’re not allowed to have sugar, the margin of error, or for the cultural upheavals of the last seven years that, frankly, make quantitative analysis of today’s birthday cakes virtually impossible.
Fractions
Everything’s a toss-up.