Calculus and Love<3

First real post :)

So over the summer I heard a former math professor, Rom Ruemmler, speak on "A Mathematical Analysis of Romantic Love" and it still astounds me to this day. His approach at love was completely mathematical, something one never thinks about. He started by differentiating between physical pleasure and romantic pleasure.

Physical pleasure: anything. including holding hands. consummatory. stop at satisfaction. can become passionate. localized.

Romantic pleasure: non-consummatory. on-going. never passionate. general.

The song "Sixteen Reasons Why I Love You" by Connie Stevens pretty much sums up what Romantic pleasure is. Listen, but don't watch. I think it kinda ruins the song...

He analyzed that the pleasure of falling in love, in respect to time and intensity, is equal to the heartbreak of losing love. He corroborated this with graphs, algebraic equations, and calculus - he graphed romantic pleasure and loss on one graph then found the integrals of each section and compared. Another point he made is that if the romantic heartbreak is traumatic, the pleasure is usually equal to the pain. If not, then the additional loss of one is equal to the additional pleasure of the other person. Generally the female falls in love faster, which also means she hurts more.

He offered two proposals:
1) Marry the right person
-OR-
2) Die before a romantic trauma occurs

He claims that there are 6 people that are "Mr./Mrs. Right" out there and 50,000 that are acceptable. So find one of those 6! The easiest way to do that is by seeking romantic pleasure.



I didn't take notes while he was talking, so I refreshed my memory of the talk with this news article as reference. Oh and a little disclaimer that I found funny, for lack of a better word, is that he isn't married. Kinda discredits a bit...