## Ehud Friedgut: Murphy’s Law of Breastfeeding Twins

This post is authored by Ehud Friedgut. Congratulations to Keren, Ehud and Michal for the birth of Shiri and Hillel!

Murphy’s law of breastfeeding twins, like all of Murphy’s laws, is supported by strong empirical evidence.

The twins’ feeding rhythm depends on your approach. If you decide to try and synchronize them in order to minimize your hassle and maximize your rest periods then twin A’s hunger will be governed by $sine(t)$ and twin B’s by $cosine(t)$.

If you decide to respect their natural rhythm in hope of falling into a fixed predictable pattern then twin A will follow $sine(t)$ and twin B $sine(\phi\times t)$, where $\phi$, the golden ratio, is the number hardest to approximate by rationals

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### 9 Responses to Ehud Friedgut: Murphy’s Law of Breastfeeding Twins

1. Ehud says:

Apropos this post I got the following nice email from a friend.

Shalom Ehud,

I am now in Bonn where I am spending a month without my family, as a
consequence I am taking long walks near the Rhein. Somehow your rhythm worries resonated (sic!) with my thoughts, watching the waves on the water. I just wanted to make a remark which may help in dealing with all the rhythm adjustment issues: please do not forget the dominant term! Its wavelength is around 160 years, you are now near the local max, and your children’s derivatives are at their max. It is easy to lose sight of it.

Lehit,
B.

2. It seems to me, a lowly economist, that if Ehud and Keren had paid more attention to rhythm, the Golden Ratio would have been someone else’s problem.

That is what happens when approximation due to wondrous love replaces rational approximation.

ps It may be that this comment was inspired by the very recent visit of the Pope to Israel, where he dominated the newscasts for three or four days.

3. olga-shulman-lednichenko says:

kids are naughty// especially when they are male kids

olga shulman

4. nomi london says:

twins?!!!!! mazaltov!!! where are u? i’m in vermont!

5. Nice and detailed information here. I’ll definitly keep an eye on this site. 🙂 Best regards.

Breast Feeding Newborn

6. Beautiful twins! I love children.

7. Yiftach says:

Sorry for being somewhat late, but Mazal Tov!!!

Clearly the best solution is to get some wolves and let them raise the twins. It worked for the Romans.

8. Pingback: Nature is irrational | Bits of DNA