On 12/06/2021 14:56, NY wrote:
Years ago, at a party while I was at university, the conversation turned
(as it sometimes does after a lot of alcohol has been consumed) to
lateral thinking puzzles, mostly involving people dying is ways that
make murder look like suicide - or indeed suicide look like murder, and
involving people of restricted stature, failed tape recordings, piles of
sawdust or puddles of water.

One person said "More people die on their birthday than any other day.
Why is this?" This was presented as if it were a fact. We had no way of
knowing whether it was indeed the case - it was long before Wkipedia and
articles such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_effect which
describe the effect and give various medical reasons.

We tried all the obvious things like "does this include babies that are
born dead or who die within a few hours" and "does it include
alcohol-related accidents when people do stupid things at their birthday
party". No, we were told. We were over-thinking the problem and
over-complicating it. The reason was blindingly obvious. The question
became really quite smug (to the point that I could see some of my mates
were itching to punch his lights out!) and said that the teacher had
asked the question when he was a lad at school; although he'd never been
asked it before or even thought about it, he got the answer immediately.
He was amazed than none of us could work it out. "Is this true in all
cultures?" "Is it true even if you don't know the date and therefore
whether today is your birthday?" He just smiled smugly and repeated that
we were thinking far too deeply and analytically about it.

Sadly we never did find out the answer: it was left as "I'll let you
think about it. Come and tell me when you eventually work out the
answer" and I never saw him again.

Can anyone think of a logical reason, which doesn't involve
alcohol-related accidents, people who are terminally ill holding out
until their next birthday, depression/suicide "I'm a year older than I
was" etc? Something which is "blindingly obvious" even to a ten-year-old
at school?


If you include deaths immediately after birth, surely that would be
enough to swing the figures?


If deaths were randomly distributed, you'd expect roughly 3 per 1000
deaths on any day of the year.

The neonatal mortality rate in this country is about 3 per 1000 live
births, with a substantial number of those on the day of birth
(literally the birthday).

So, all other things being equal, you'd have a 3 per 1000 chance of
dying on any day of the year, except your birthday when you have to add
in roughly an extra 3 per 1000 chance that you died at birth.

Sorry, but there's no tactful way of explaining that.