So, er, I became a dad recently.
(Audience cheer)
Thanks so mu - I mean, it was easy.
(laughs) for me, anyway.
Um, I... Stop trying to check Matt's Maths! I'm going to turn this round.
No, sorry, I'm not going to be upstaged by a square.
And that thing that he drew.
Um... (laughs)
So, yay, I wanted to talk about childbirth.
You know, childbirth is a wonderful opportunity for data collection.
Er, yeah, honestly, it is, because...
when you go into labour you get asked this question all the time
"How long are your contractions?"
Everyone wants to know, the midwives and the doctors
because, the closer you are to giving birth, the longer your contractions become.
So this is an important data collection task that you have.
And in the old days you might use pen and paper to keep track of it
and, you know, a clock on the wall or something
but these days the modern pregnant nerd can use an app
So I downloaded an app for my Android phone
Apps are available for iphone as well
If you've got a Windows phone you can use it to scrape the numbers into a rock
I don't know what you people do... Erm...
And the way the app works is, er, there's just a big button on the screen
and when the contraction starts you press the button
and when the contraction stops you press the button again
and it just takes care of everything. It's amazing.
Um, and er, that's quite a nice job for dad.
Cos, er, cos mum's quite busy.
(laughs) and she hasn't got time for your stupid ***king app
Um (laughter) so, er...
So that was me. Um...
"Is it happening now darling? Cos if you don't tell me it doesn't work."
(laughter) Um, so I...
I'm helping. Er...
So I could see that Leanne's contractions were getting longer and longer
So I thought okay we'd better call the hospital
I phoned them up and I said, "My wife's contractions are 58 seconds long
Um, that's the average over the last half an hour, by the way.
I can also give you the average over the last hour, if...
I mean with this app I can give you the average over any time period you...Oh you want me to come in? Okay.
Oh, I'll, I'll bring my wife.
So, so we drive to the hospital
and we get there and we've got this, in our little room we've got a pool there
cos we're going to have a water birth, that's the plan.
Errr, which is amazing by the way, err
except the midwives hadn't filled the pool with water yet
because they didn't think she was close to giving birth
even though her contractions were really long
And that's because they, there's another data point that they use,
which is, how predictable are the contractions?
Like, are they all the same length or are they all different lengths?
And they felt that Leanne's contractions weren't regular enough.
The problem is, Leanne wanted to get in the pool.
Like, right now!
So it was my job to persuade the midwives to fill it.
And fortunately the app that I'd downloaded has a feature where you can extract the data
and load it into Excel.
And, er, fortunately I'd brought my laptop with me, so...
(laughter) So...
So I was able to knock up a quick spreadsheet...
and a graph...
to show the midwives so that they could see what was going on
Um, and I can reproduce that for you now, so...
So we've got time of day along the bottom
length of contractions up the side in minutes and seconds
and this is the data that came out of the app.
So we've got two - oh, by the way, that's where I had to go and move the car so we'll go without that... (laughter)
Um, so, but what you can see is that they're not very predictable
They're quite spread out, but as time goes on it gets more predictable - it's more bunched up there.
And there's a wonderful thing you can do with Excel,
which is, you can track how that changes as a function of time.
It's the standard deviation, basically.
So I was able to create a sort of envelope of possible contraction lengths
and then project that into the future.
(laughter) So...
So I was able to say to the midwives that, as you can see, there is a point in the future
at which my wife's contractions become perfectly regular
and that's at 20:55
(Laughter) And it's my working hypothesis...
that that is the moment my child will be born.
Silence.
Er, so I said, "Look, I'll show you my working out."
And at that point they filled the pool, so, er, that's great...
(laughter)
Er...
Ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you that my daughter was born
at twenty...
fifty... four
(he sighs; man in audience cheers)
No, no, no, no, it's alright, because...
Error bars - yes!
(Audience claps and cheers) Totally nailed it!
Okay, yep, but... it is an unusual name for a first child.
(laughs) We like it. Little Errors, we call her.
Not really, she's called Lyra
And here she is (audience: aaah)
She already knows the best angle for a selfie; she's worked that out, so, er, so that's good.
I'll show you one more picture. This is the moment she's discovered she's too young for Doctor Who
so, er, there is an age limit, just so you know
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the most statistically significant baby ever: Lyra.
Cheers and applause
Music
(Laughs) At the start of that story, I said, "I've just had a baby."
which was true three years ago...
but now is starting to sound a little bit disingenuous when I say it live on stage
or at least it was sounding disingenuous until...
I've just had another baby
so while it's technically true, it's referring to a different one than I talk about in the story
The new one's called Aster
I thought you might like to see Aster, because you just saw Lyra.
Here he is. Honestly, what a cutie.
Takes just after his sister, really, chip off the old block.
The other thing I should say is, on my youtube channel I want everything to be true all the time
or at least to the best of my knowledge
whereas when I'm telling stories on stage there are some embellishments and artistic licences taken
I'll leave it up to you to figure out where the exaggerations are
but the data is real
and it's really cool to see how it fits with what we expect
you know, your contractions do get longer as you approach birth
and the standard deviation goes down
You can see that in the bunching up
You can see that the lengths of contractions become more regular, more predictable.
The reason I've told this story so many times is because it was part of a tour show that I did,
called "Just for Graphs", which is kind of how it sounds
That's something I was doing with Helen Arney and Matt Parker
Um, we are collectively known as "Festival of the Spoken Nerd"
and that was our third ever tour show
which you just watched the DVD recording of
and the DVD is now available, so you can buy it
If you prefer HD, then there's an HD download option as well
In fact, if you buy the DVD from the Festival of the Spoken Nerd shop, you get the HD download for free
All the details are in the description there
And, um, so yeah, so if you like physical items and you also like lots and lots of pixels, then the DVD plus free download is the best option for you.
though, if you're a real connoisseur, I recommend the VHS copy
Also comes with an HD download for free
Um, yeah, we got six VHS copies made
which you might think is stupid, but then six people bought them
so we've had to get some more made
They seem popular.
Um, it costs a lot of money to make a DVD and we're kind of trying to recoup the costs now
so if you were to buy the DVD, we're just very grateful
We really appreciate your support
you know, we do it for the love really...
and the money
So I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, don't forget to hit Subscribe and I'll see you next time.
Yes, I will, I will see you there. Youtube - it's a two-way thing
If you can see me, I can see you.