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Chang_Pam.txt
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Chang_Pam.txt
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March 17, 2015
Drinking out of a coconut for spring break and thinking about how many people have died from coconuts. This isn’t the result of a morbid over-curiosity but actually from an experience - saw a coconut fall onto a car and leave a dent today. Apparently a semi-famous study was published in 1984 called "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts" which resulted in quite a bit a hubbub about deaths by coconuts. Apparently 150 people are killed every year by falling coconuts, and people are 10 times more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than a shark. Apparently this statistic is not true, and has entered urban legend. It’s interesting how statistics like this just get thrown around as a fact when there doesn’t seem to be any kind of real support for it - many seemingly reputable sources quote this number when it is apparently definitely false.
I found a very interesting blog post where the writer attempts to calculate the probability of getting hit by a coconut. According to him, if everything was purely random and no one actively avoided coconuts, there should be (6×10^-6 hits per person) × (6.7×10^9 people) = 40,000 hits and with a fatality rate of 1%, 400 people a year should die from coconut hits. Interesting to see how much it differs from the oft cited statistic. No one seems to have a *definitive* answer on how many people actually died - seems like this kind of information is not very well documented.
http://diaryofnumbers.blogspot.com/2010/11/death-by-coconut.html