Fuzzy math

Published in The Friday Times on November 16th, 2007

Sir, Why have Pakistani Peoples Party (PPP) supporters been claiming that three million people participated in the rally which welcomed Benazir Bhutto (BB) on October 18? There is a method to calculate the number of people in any procession, and I can say with certainty that less than 100,000 people were there.

I base my calculations on the fact that the procession was only a kilometre and a half in length, and that a kilometre can accommodate only 50 buses (most of those participating in the rally were brought there in buses). That works out to 75 buses in the procession or 7,500 people (you can’t fit more than 100 people in and on top of a bus).

If we further assume that there were 2,000 cars (with five people in each), together with 10,000 motorcycles (with two people on each), we arrive at a figure of 45,000 participants. That’s less than half a lakh. Let’s assume that 25,000 people living in the houses along the route of the procession also came out to gawk at BB, the total is now 70,000.

Another way is to work out how many people can be squeezed into the space occupied by the participants. Since there were 75 buses and 2,000 cars (let’s ignore the motorcycles), only 50 feet of width was available to the people on the kilometre and a half of Sharah e Faisal. A human being needs at least four square feet when standing or walking, and a kilometre and a half of a 50 foot wide road is equal to 250,000 square feet. Dividing this by four (the space needed by a man), the number of people who were in the rally works out to be 62,500. Nowhere near the three million claimed by party officials!