77 Quotes by Hannah Fry

This is exactly the sort of thing that happens when you recklessly try to have fun without taking the time to analyse your situation mathematically.

An arguing couple spiraling into negativity and teetering on the brink of divorce is actually mathematically equivalent to the beginning of a nuclear war.

The most successful relationships are ones with a really low negativity threshold. In those relationships, couples allow each other to complain, and work together to constantly repair the tiny issues between them. In such cases, couples don't bottle up their feelings, and little things don't end up being blown completely out of proportion.

There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.

Because the future doesn’t just happen. We create it.

This is known in economics as the “decoy effect.” What it demonstrates is that the presence of an irrelevant alternative can change how you view your choices. It has been exploited by marketing experts for decades.

As girls go through puberty, their hormones will have a direct impact on how their facial features develop. Women with high levels of estrogen will end up with full lips and a large waist-to-hip ratio, while women with lower levels of androgen, the steroid hormones, will keep their short and narrow jaws from childhood, along with their flatter brows – giving them much larger eyes. And – surprise, surprise – this balance of female hormones is also positively linked to fertility.

We don’t perceive each year as a fixed period of time; we experience each new year as a smaller and smaller fraction of the life we’ve lived.

It’s like the saying among airline pilots that the best flying team has three components: a pilot, a computer and a dog. The computer is there to fly the plane, the pilot is there to feed the dog. And the dog is there to bite the human if it tries to touch the computer.