15. Mark Twain one observed that the lower Mississippi River is very crooked and that over the years, as the bends and turns straighten out, the river gets shorter and shorter. Using numerical data about the length of the lower part of the river, he noticed that in the year 1700 the river was more than 1200 miles long, yet by the year 1875 it was only 973 miles long. Twain concluded that any person “can see that 742 years from now the lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters lone.” What is wrong with his inductive reasoning?

I'm sure he was making a joke at the expense of people who rely on mathematics rather than common sense. It is funny, but then Twain was a remarkably funny author..

The problem is that the comparison is apt using some sort of proportion, but it is absurd to think that the land holding the river would also shrink a proportional amount.

The river reached a minimum (presumably) in 1875 by cutting out all the loops that were there in 1700. The Mississippi was then a straight line from it's beginning to its delta on the gulf of Mexico. It could not get any shorter. Still, Twain managed to get laughs with his whimsical humor.

Thanks for posting. This made my evening.