How High?

I like maths. I like equations. It's nice to think that we can fit things to equations 'cos it means we can use them to predict what's going to happen*. Let's take Mason and Jacob's height. Their height has been measured every time we've been to the pediatrician since they've been born. How cool would it be if we could use these data, fit an equation and extrapolate to predict their height when, say, they turn 10 years old.

If you look at the twins' height before they turned 2 you could fit a pretty good logarithmic function to the data (those not maths-savvy please just bear with me). To prove it, here are the graphs:

Using these plots means that at 10 years old I'd predict Mason to be 3'1" and Jacob to be 3'2". A little small, maybe. When we took the kids for their 2 year check up they'd shot up a little. Yep - the new point didn't fit the graph, but it does fit a 3rd order polynomial. Just to prove it, here are the graphs:

Now, taking these data, I'd predict the twins' height at 10 years old to be Mason at 284'2" and Jacob at 246'10". Here's an artist's impression of what the Lieberman household might look like in 2020:

Isn't maths great?!

* The blog is not responsible for any inaccuracies found in this post.