Interview: Randall Munroe, Author of ‘What If?’
Simple questions can lead to very complicated answers. For instance: What if everyone actually had just one soul mate — one random person somewhere in the world? Could they ever meet?
“You know, there are a lot more people who have been alive than who are alive right now. So if your soul mate is randomly assigned from all humans, it’s probably somebody who is already dead or who has not yet been born.”
That’s Randall Munroe talking to NPR’s Lynn Neary. (Munroe makes a living answering questions like this.) To simplify the problem, he says we can narrow the eligible population down to living humans close in age. But even assuming love at first sight, he says the odds are pretty slim: