So you’ve been searching in vain for something you have in common with Einstein – but you can’t pull off the hairstyle, you wouldn’t know time dilation from Brownian motion and you can’t play the violin (not that he was all that good at it either). Well, rest easy – according to a recent Northwestern University study of human behaviour, you probably do your email the same way Old Al handled his letter-writing.The researchers, led by Professor Luis Amaral, examined the extremely extensive letter correspondence of 16 famous writers, over a period spanning 1574 to 1966, including Einstein, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway and other people who loved to put pen to paper.
They found that these writers all sent letters randomly, but in cycles. More than that, they found that letters were written according to the same mathematical model the Northwestern team had used in a previous study to explain modern email behaviour.
No matter what their profession, letter writers and email writers behaved the same way: they followed a circadian cycle (body rhythm, or routine); they tended to write a number of letters at one sitting (more efficient); and when they wrote had more to do with chance and circumstances writing the most important letter first.
Sound familiar? Thought so. Good going, Einsteins.
Source: Physorg
