Harry Potter and the Mathematics of Doom

Editor's Weekly Ramblings 15

Friday 27th June 2003

Harry Potter and the Mathematics of Doom

The sun is out here in Great Britain and mad dogs and Englishmen have been out in the midday sun. In my case I have been making the arduous trip to the local park weighed down by the monstrous tome that is the new Harry Potter book. At a mere 766 pages it is the longest yet, and I am fairly convinced that within the mathematical sequence that is the number of pages in each book, lies the secrets of life, the universe and everything. Or at least clues as to the potential sizes of the last two books in the series. Let us consider the evidence. (All figures are based on the UK hardback editions)

If we then take this process further and turn these figures into percentage increases; then we can see that like death and taxes it seems an immutable law of life that each new Harry Potter book will grow by a certain number of pages.

Now we have the raw data we can cast a Reductio Absurdem spell in true Harry Potter style, and figure out the percentage increases over the series so far. Along with tantalising predictions about the size of future editions...