Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1901-11-15
FORTY-SECOND COUSINS.
According to the Professor II I, tina
Remotest Relationship.

RenoteSt Relationship
He WAS professor of mathematics IN
one of our women's colleges, middle.
aged, fond of joke and given to ra-
ducing the things OF common life 70
formulas, partly for the fun of 1t ap,
partly to bring mathematical truths
closer to the minds of his pupils. Opa
day, just before the lecture began and
as the professor came in, he overheard
one of the girls say, with a sigh: oh
he's some forty-second cousin, l believe
and l suppose l must show him
around"
you should be careful" lnterjected
the professor, with fairly successful
effort TO appear solemn, you should be
more careful In your use of mathemat
ical terms. Are you sure you are strict.
ly accurate when you say 'forty-second
cousinT He may be closer degree Of
relationship"
"Why! He's no relation at all, II II
comes to that" said the fair student.
ut u.s." resumed the professor imper.
turbably, "as you doubtless know al.
ready, a question Of the powers of Q.
We all have two parents, four grand.
parents, eight great-grandparents, six.
teen great-great-grandpar each fig.
ure being q power of 2 and in ~
generations consequently we have
grandparent with (N-D greats In front
Of the title. 1t also obtains lnversely.
All who trace to the same parents are
brothers or sisters, to the same grand.
parent are cousins, to the same great
grandparent are second cousins to the
Nc grandparent are On plus u tn
cousins.
1.-THE powers of 2, however, reach as
founding figures rather quickly. We
have 1923 (9-greaD grandparents
each, for example. Going back twenty
generations, we have each little more
than a million Observation-Disclosures,
over billion 29-great- grandparents,
and In the forty-third generation we
have each about /, 43S, $780, 100000 a.
great-grandparents, and all who trace
back to any one Of those ABS, S0O,OOO,-
wv are forty second cOuSlHS.
''If you consider a moment, you will
see that at each of this thousand bill
lions is a progenitor, that there is little
room in the worlds population, as at
present constituted, for the mob of
cousins. There is a saving clause,
however. This would only obtain if
everybody was careful not to marry in
the same line of descent.
I'm practice we usually object to
marrying cousins and some people draw
the line on second cousins, but to make
the above statement come true we
should object to, say, forty-second cou-
sins, which Is impossible, practically.
We cannot, In practice, draw the line on
twentieth cousins, for example. If two
twentieth cousins marry, it throws out
one from the million of nineteen great
grandparents to be considered and so
with the other degrees. Probably in
practice that Is what we are always
doing-when we marry. We are almost
undoubtedly marrying at least TWEEN
ty-fifth cousin, and everybody in the
world is at least forty-second cousin
and probably somewhat nearer In rela-
tienship."
"Gracious" said the original offender,
a blonde, by the way. "If am born in
st. Louis and young man is born in
Newton-at-at-weH about the same
tme-are we related?"
Certainly" responded the professor,
with a grin. You are IN plus y tn
cousins, having descended from the
same N-g grandparent, possibly along
where N is less than 30 at least"
"Gee," said the tall brunette of the
class, who had been listening, as she
felt of her back hair and helped her
self to caramel, according to the Bos-
ton Herald, she would be an n-g grand
parent all right"