Author Archives: R.E. Buxbaum

About R.E. Buxbaum

Robert Buxbaum is a life-long engineer, a product of New York's Brooklyn Technical High School, New York's Cooper Union to Science and Art, and Princeton University where he got a PhD in Chemical Engineering. From 1981 to 1991 he was a professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan State, and now runs an engineering shop in Oak Park, outside of Detroit, Michigan. REB Research manufactures and sells hydrogen generation and purification equipment. He's married with 3 wonderful children who, he's told, would prefer to not be mentioned except by way of complete, unadulterated compliments. As of 2016, he's running to be the drain commissioner/ water resources commissioner of Oakland county.

Liberals are unhappy, every demographic less happy than conservatives.

Leave a reply

Liberals are less happy than conservatives, a finding that has been found consistently in every study since the first in 1972. It persists for Americans whether Democrats or Republicans are in control in Washington, and holds true for both sexes, and all sexualities, all ages, all races and incomes, all education levels. An example is the 2022 Cooperative Election Study from Tufts University. According to the survey, organized by Nate Silver for his silver bulletin, here, liberals of every demographic are significant less happy than conservatives in that demographic, with an average difference of 15 points on a 0 to 100 scale.

Graphic from Nate Silver’s “Silver bulletin,” based on data from the 2022 cooperative election survey.

I note that 2020-2022 was the height of the Biden administration, with Democrats in control of the entire government.

Some of this can be explained perhaps by self-selection: A liberal may considered a person who don’t like the current situation, and wants it changed, while a conservative, in some sense is someone happy with the status quo. Of course this isn’t the full story, since conservatives too generally want to see change — smaller government, less regulation and taxes, and the like. The real gap in happiness, then seems to come from a difference in perception of how important the change is, or how bad things are now. Liberals, on TV at least, claim that America is awful, among the worst countries ever: racist, sexist, colonialist, violent, stupid, fascist. They blame the US for warm temperatures and suffering Iranian women, finding half of their fellow Americans – those who don’t agree– “a basket of deplorables,” to quote Hillary Clinton, where half of these conservatives needed re-education, in her view, and the other half were beyond re-education. Conservatives are just not as unhappy. They still think that they can “Make America Great Again”, perhaps by capturing something of the good old days (1945, say).

Devyn Brandt (They/Them) orientation advisor for Washington University. My guess is liberal, and not very happy.

The happiness gap has increased with time and extends into mental health. In the 2022 Cooperative Election Study  found that, 16% of all Americans who voted for Joe Biden had depression in 2020. Going further, 45% of self-described liberals said their mental health was poor. By contrast 51% of conservatives said their mental health was excellent, and only 19% said it was poor. This might be self-delusion, still it is consistent year to year. A year later this 2023 depression study from Columbia University found only 20% of liberals who believed they had excellent mental health while 51% of conservatives believed their mental health was excellent. Presenting this another way, among voters who said their mental health was poor, 45% identified as liberal, and 19% as conservative. The remaining 36% were either independent, or decided not to answer the question.

Going back to an older Pew study 2008, 47% of Republicans said they were “very happy” compared to 28% of liberal Democrats. All of the advances since then, have not made liberals less unhappy, if this 2019 study is to be trusted, they keep looking for meaning in their lives, and things to be unhappy about.

Some things make liberals happy, though, and one of them is money. The highest income liberals (>$100k per household) are happier than poorer liberals, but only as happy as the lowest income conservatives (<$30k/ household), 60% in both cases. Education helps too, but not as much, and religion. Political activism only makes things worse, both for liberals and conservatives. My advice for the summer: try ice cream. It always works for me. And this song from the musical Iolanthe, where the guard outside the parliament confides that political stance is inborn, with particular opinions handed down by others, including a band of mischievous fairies.

Robert Buxbaum, June 24, 2025

All things change, nothing passes away, joke cartoon

Leave a reply

I’ve been blogging now for 13 years on all sorts of things; there were jokes, essays, politics, science, hydrogen.. I find that many of them are still relevant, though I would change most of them if they were to be written today. My first post was against the very high Detroit, MI minimum wage that was supposed to help black folks, but that I claimed ruined their city and their lives, and basically guaranteed corruption. I’d get back to this topic every now and again, but he problem has moved to LA and Puerto Rico. The last few Detroit mayors have eschewed this scam, to the benefit of the city.

Another topic I write about is engineering, like why the sky was blue, and why nuclear power makes lots of sense — and about hydrogen thermodynamics, or diffusion, or purification, or hydrogen cars being better than battery EVs.

MY opinion on hydrogen is still very high, though my opinion of hydrogen cars has soured in the past few years. There is infrastructure, and the cars themselves have improved, especially the batteries. There is now a good argument to be made that EVs make sense, especially for those who own their own home and who travel more than 500 miles per week. Meanwhile the customer base for hydrogen cars is only as a range extender.

Arctic Ice last month. It’s shrunk slightly, but still there — and I think the shrinking is a benefit.

I wrote disparagingly about global warming, arguing that Al Gore’s, Nobel prize winning claims were vastly exaggerated.. The arctic was supposed to be ice free by 2015 according to 98% of experts agreed (it’s things like that the ding the credibility of experts). I’d also argued that warmer was better. I’m reminded of a quote from Ovid, a Roman author: “Omnia mutantur, nihil interit”. Everything changes, but nothing passes away. It’s not that I read Ovid regularly, but the quote had appeared, in a modified form, in the British comedy, “Yes Prime Minister.”

I’d posted that it was unlikely that the Ukraine war would be fast, and it has not been, but neither was it as destructive as I feared. I did not sink the German economy, as I thought.

There is a new Pope now with words of hope — delivered, in English at White Sox stadium. This t seems like a big improvement. We have another war with Islam; different but the same, and continued issues with China. And I’m learning Latin via Duolingo. (Cum Duolingo, studeo linguae latinae.)

Robert Buxbaum, June 19, 2025. My company’s main website has changed too, it’s switched to WordPress format, check out the new look.

A customer gets contract for moon mining He3

Leave a reply

A customer of ours, Interlune, just got a contract for any He3 they can bring back after mining it on the moon. He3 is a rare isotope of helium, used in cryogenic refrigeration, and (some) nuclear fusion reactors. It’s more common on the moon than on earth, and is expensive enough that it may make sense to mine it on the moon and bring it back. The US government has agreed to buy all of interlune’s lunar, He3 for the next ten years, ‘at the market rate.’

Our company, REB Research, comes into this because, lunar helium is found mixed with hydrogen species including HD. For prospecting, this is a problem in that He3 is easily confused with HD; they need to remove the HD to be able to determine how much He3 is in the ore. We make hydrogen extraction equipment, and were happy to supply them. It’s not a large part of our business, but we’re going to the moon because it’s ‘out there.’

Robert Buxbaum, May 29, 2025. Our site looks new; we’re moving to WordPress.

Deriving Trump’s tariff formula, and correcting it.

Leave a reply

We have a trade imbalance with many countries, it causes a loss of American jobs, and a transfer of currency abroad. This imbalance is not all negative, of course, it provides US consumers with cheaper consumer goods. Trump would like to eliminate the imbalance using tariffs. He hopes that this will create jobs, and that the money raised will help balance the US budget. He’s already moved to end income taxes on tips expecting to replace that tax with tariff income. Trump claims that the tariffs are not inflationary compared to current the tax system that he claims has been hacked by the elites. In past essays, I’ve discussed the pluses and minuses of tariffs here, and here. Now I’d now like to derive the formula Trump uses, see below. The proposed tariff for any country or region, i, he calls ∆τi.

In the equation at left, χi = our exports to country, i. Similarly, mi = our imports from that country. The difference between these two is our trade imbalance, something he’d like to set to zero. There are two other greek terms that I will discuss, ε and φ. These are the elasticity of elasticity of consumption to price, and the elasticity of price to tariffs. Trump uses an asterix here to indicate multiplication. I will use a, more normal, “dot” symbol, •, to the same purpose. For most countries, he takes the two elasticities to cancel to 2, and produces a chart.

Let’s say that the dollar amount we currently buy from some country, i, = mi  = ni • Pi, where ni is the number of items bought from this country, and Pi is the average price. The intended effect of tariffs is to reduce mi  by raising Pi, the price consumers pay for goods from that country. This increase is certainly inflationary in terms of the consumer: a consumer of French wine will pay more per bottle unless he/she switches to US wine. Typically this price rise is not inflationary in terms of the country as a whole, because the producer likely swallows some of the tariff, so for the country as a whole, we pay less per bottle of French wine. The customer does not see that, but it’s worth noting. Trump sees things this way.

Back to the formula, we need to figure out how much the price will go up and how much sales will change. Economists have elasticity numbers for both these relations, denoted φ and ε. We can say that, for any country, I, the rise in the price of the average product is ∆Pi = Pi•∆τi •φ. Where Pi is the original price, ∆τi is the tariff, and φ is the fraction of this tariff that gets passed on to the consumer. A typical value is φ= 1/2 though some claim less. Assuming φ= 1/2 , if we add a 20%=∆τi tariff, as on on French wine, the consumer price will rise by 10%, a change that will cause him/her to buy less.

How much less will the consumer buy? That’s determined by the elasticity of sales, ε. This is the fractional decrease in the number items bought per fractional rise in the price. In math terms, ∆ni /ni = -ε∆Pi/Pi where ε is the elasticity. Now, since ∆Pi = Pi•∆τi •φ, we find that:

∆ni = -ni•ε•∆τi •φ.

There is evidence to suggest that, for the average product, ε equals about 2, and also evidence that it’s 4. Trump prefers 4, and uses it for his calculations. I prefer 2, and will get nearly the same tariffs at the end. Whatever our preferred value for ε, our next step is to use the following approximation, accurate for small ∆(mi);

∆mi  = ∆(ni•Pi) = ∆ni•Pi, +  ni•∆Pi . 

Trump seems to ignore the second term. Perhaps because it can either be positive or negative, as I’d mentioned above, depending on whether you look at things in terms of the customer or of the US as a whole. I’ll keep it in, writing this term in lighter text. In the end I will calculate a fairly similar tariff to Trump:

∆mi = -ni•ε•∆τi •φ•Pi  + ni•Pi•∆τi •φ.

Rearranging the above, and recalling that ni•Pi• =mi, you can find the appropriate tariff to eliminate the trade imbalance.

∆τi =   -∆mi  /(ε • φ• mi  + φ•mi) .

To make the trade imbalance go away, you need -∆mi = χi-mi . Thus,

∆τi =   χi-mi   /(ε • φ • mi  + φ•mi)

This is the Trump formula with an extra term in light text. If you ignore that term and use the values Trump prefers, ε =4 and φ=1/2, you get the exact values of the tariffs he listed on the chart for most countries — those with positive trade imbalances.

∆τi =   χi-mi / 2 mi  

Now, I’d like to put back in the missing term, and use the (better) values, values I would trust, ε =2 and φ=1/2. Using those values, I find the tariff should be slightly higher.

∆τi =   χi-mi / 3/2 mi  .

I should note that some countries are creating to these trips by raising their own tariffs, and some are lowering theirs. This will cause a change in the imbalance of trade, and Trump will have to change the tariff schedule periodically to keep up.

Robert Buxbaum, April 10, 2025.

The CPAP, not totally useless.

Leave a reply

CPAP machines (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machines) are very commonly prescribed to prevent sleep apnea. They were originally prescribed to prevent heart attack, and despite minimal evidence that they help, they are still paid for by most insurance, including medicare. Sleep apnea is associated with snoring and with being overweight. The theory, supported by minimal evidence, was that stopping the apnea would prevent heart attack.

My C-PAP/ APAP. shown with distilled water

Five years ago, I found myself among those prescribed. CPAP, and found no evidence they extended life, or prevented any heart problem. I wrote this blog post, explaining what I thought was going on. I suspected some health risks, and found no obvious sleep benefit; I felt claustrophobic and woke with sniffles. I quickly stopped using the device.

Last month I retried my CPAP, now with a better fitting mask (nose only) and better humidification. I now find sleep benefits and no sniffles, but still see no sign of health benefits. “Even among participants with good CPAP adherence there was no significant reduction in cardiovascular risk in the two largest trials.2,3 ” There also appear to be some bad side effects. If the pressures are too high, the CPAP can cause inflammation and micro-tears in the lung. This is the same problem that killed people on ventilators during COVID. CPAP users show significantly increased inflammation markers, with higher inflammation the higher the pressure used. Lower pressure settings seems to result in fewer heart problems, too, see figure below. The number of cumulative adverse heart-events is lower for patients, randomly selected, who used a pressure below 7 cm H2O (lower than 0.1 psi). Most events happen in the first few months, and don’t know why. The researchers do not comment on this.

From the Lancet, Y. Peter et al, Volume 101, 105015, March 2024, with with results adjusted for age, sex, and BMI. Pressures below ≤7 cmH2O show fewer events. Most CPAPs are set to higher pressures, about 10cmH2O

I suspect that heart attack and stroke are mostly driven by BMI, lack of exercise, and by eating too much of the wrong foods (e.g. waffles, see here). I suspect the CPAP does nothing for this beyond improved sleep, and that, at the current pressure settings, it may be harmful.The health risks might have put me off the machine, except I like getting better sleep.

I figured I could try decreasing the pressure, hoping to get good sleep with fewer lung risks. I can’t reduce usage because healthcare pays for supplies only if you use the device 4+ hours per night, tracking your usage over the internet to make sure. I discovered that my device, an AirSense 10, was set to deliver pressures between 5 and 15 cmH2O resulting in an average delivery pressure of 10.2 cmH2O. I decreased the range to 4.6-12.4 cm, then further, to 5-9 cmH2O. So far, the machine shows no reduction in average pressure(?!) but my sleep is OK.

On a national level, I suspect that this device should not be prescribed as often as it is, and suspect that the set pressures should be lower. There is a replication crisis in science; drug statistics tend to be bogus, and food results too. If it were me I’d look for CPAP research to show real health benefits, I’d use linear regression with an r-squared test for significance, as here.

Robert Buxbaum, March 30, 2025.

Sayings of Zen Judaism

Leave a reply

All of the following bits of Zen-like wisdom are derived from David M. Bader’s book, “Zen Judaism”. Some of these (in italics) have been modified by me. I’ve posted several other examples of zen-wisdom/ humor, e.g this. Most every piece of real wisdom appears as a joke, IMHO.

I bought a copy, then modified some as I saw fit. He’s holding a bagel.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, show him pictures of the grandchildren.

One may take a vow of fasting, or of celibacy, a vow of silence or to avoid sleep is out of the question.

Wherever you go, there you are.  Your luggage is another story.

Be here now, be someplace else later; is that so complicated?

Accept misfortune.  Do not wish for perfect health, or a life without problems. What would you talk about?

Drink tea and nourish life; with the first sip, joy; with the second sip, satisfaction; with the third sip, Danish.

Self abnegation is not easy. It takes much effort, and then what have you got?

The words, “there is no self,” can be terrifying. Still they’re not as bad as, “may you grow like an onion with your head in the ground.”

Bring the Buddha to your table, and on Passover, the prophet Elijah. That’s about as many invisible guests as anyone needs.

If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Oy.

The world does not speak. It does not blame or take sides. The world has no expectations, and it demands nothing of others. The world is not Jewish.

Be patient and achieve all things. Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions.  Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.

To find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals.
You might want to see a specialist.

Seek not the outer enticements. Dwell not in the inner strife. Try to find a nice place in the suburbs with good schools.

Practice a livelihood that does not harm yourself or others, choose an occupation furthering love and compassion. Ask about the health plan, too. No freelancing.

Let go of pride, ego, and opinions. Admit your error and forgive those of others. Relinquishment will lead to calm and healing in your relationships. If that doesn’t work, try small claims court.

For the wary Pilgrim, a Zen poem: thousands reach the gateless gate from many paths; once through, they dwell serenely between heaven and earth; enjoying golf, line dancing, Yiddish lessons, and aquacise. Come see our model units at Century Village.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Do this and achieve peace. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

Go then and wander for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion for the world. Teach what is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end. Don’t forget to write, and always wear clean underwear. You never know when you could end up in the emergency room.

Robert Buxbaum, March 24, 2025. Other books by David Bader include “Haikus for jews”, “The book of Murray”, and “How to be an extremely Reform Jew”. Bader claims to have achieved complete and perfect emptiness, although two hours later he often feels full again.

The second shortest math paper explained, Fermat’s last theorem conjecture.

Leave a reply

Shown below is the second shortest published math paper; it’s the shortest published math paper, except for this one. This paper relates to an extension to Fermat’s last theorem. That’s well known math, though I think a few words of background would help the educated lay reader.

By way of background, Fermat’s last theorem states that there is no set of integers for which An + Bn = Qn, where n is an integer larger than 2. Thus, there is no set where A3 + B3 = Q3 or A5 + B5 = Q5, etc. This theorem was really a conjecture until recently though Fermat claimed to have proven it in 1695.

The Euler conjecture of the title here, is related to Fermat’s conjecture/theorum: Either conjectured that the smallest collections of A, B, C, D.., whose power to the n, summed, will equal some whole number to the power n, Qn , must have at least as many components (A,B,C,D,..) as the exponent value, n. Thus, while you might find a set of five numbers, A, B, C, D, E where A5 + B5 + C5 + D5 + E5 = Q5, you can’t find a set of four numbers where A5 + B5 + C5 + D5 = Q5. The paper above disproves this conjecture in a most clear way; it shows a counter-example where A5 + B5 + C5 + D5 = Q5.

This is, in a sense, the ideal math paper: clear, short, important, and true. For background to this conjecture, the authors merely reference a page of a math history book.

Robert E. Buxbaum, March 17, 2025. The shortest paper ever is this gem in the journal of psychology.

The shortest published math paper explained, and extended.

1 Reply

Shown below is the shortest math pater ever published. It appeared in the American Mathematical Monthly, 2004, and would have appeared in a more honored journal if the authors were willing to add more words as an editor requested. You’ll see that the paper itself has only pictures and one sentence with one English word: n2 + 2 can:, I thought I might as well try to explain it because as the editor commented, this is too few words for most readers.

The trick to understanding this at all is that most of the background is in the title, which is in the form of a question. The text of the article is in the form of an answer with the diagrams serving as proof. Even with this insight, you’ll likely need more background, but that’s the start.

Here’s the background: Most folks notice that you can make a big equilateral triangle of side-length n, out of n2 unit subtriangles, that is of subtrangles where the side lengths =1. For example, to make an equilateral triangle with length 10, requires 100 unit equilateral triangles, n2.

Now the question in the title involves what happens if all these n2 component triangles are made slightly larger, the sides of each becoming 1+ε/n, where ε is some very small amount. The side of the new big triangle is now n+ε. The question in the title now is can you cover this bigger, super triangle with n2+1 unit triangles. The authors provide two, half answers to this question by their drawings, suggesting two different ways that you can cover the bigger super-triangle with n2+2 unit triangles. That would be 102 for the case where you start with 100 unit triangles and expanded each by ε/n.

The first solution is the bottom of figure 1. This shows what happens if you add two more unit triangles to the bottom row of the old super triangle, and squish a bit from the sides so that the top of the new row matches the bottom of the old row. Doing this leaves you with a row that’s n+ε long at the bottom with wings at the top that expand the sides to n+ε as well. The drawing shows that this new row has effective height, 1+ε.

Now, take every other row and push them together slightly from top-down so that the height becomes (1-ε) but the length expands to n(1+ε). Adding rows like this, you’ll be able to cover the entirety of the bottom space of the new, larger super triangle. Notice that the thickness of each line now 1-ε as shown. Use these longer lines to cover the rest of the bigger super triangle. And that’s the end of the paper. Once again you needed n2+2 unit triangles to cover the bigger super-triangle.

An extension to the above paper was discovered since the original paper. It’s shown in the figure below. Here the original requirement of equilateral triangles is relaxed. For highly elongated triangles, you still find that a normal super-triangle requires n2 sub-triangles. But now, from this figure, you see that an expanded super-triangle (each side expanded by 1+ε/n say) can be covered using only n2+1 of the original size subtriangles.

The proof is clear enough that no words are needed. It’s conceivable that the authors could have published this as an even shorter paper, if it were ever published, but it was not. Instead, I saw this extension as a result from a math competition, here. These insights of geometry come from Princeton University, a top notch place where I was a grad student (in engineering). The school has gone somewhat to seed, IMHO, because of political correctness.

There are shorter published papers, BTW, though this was the shortest published math paper. The shortest technical paper ever is this one from the journal of behavioral sciences.

Robert Buxbaum, March 6, 2025. I’d like to add a joke: To make a long story short, I became an editor.

So long to the SS United States, the fastest ocean liner.

Leave a reply

The SS United States is in the process of being towed to its final resting place, on the sea floor near florida, to be a scuba-diving reef. She is the largest ocean liner to be entirely constructed in the United States and was the fastest ocean liner to cross the Atlantic Ocean in either direction, 36 knots or 41 mph average speed. She won the Blue Riband for this on her first voyage, in 1952, and retained that title till today. There was a faster crossing in June, 1990 by the Hoverspeed Great Britain, 36.6 knots, 42.1 mph average speed, but the Hoverspeed was a 76 meter channel catamaran, not an ocean liner.

The SS United States was half-paid for by the US government. Its purpose was fast passenger transport across the Atlantic. The government contributed because it might be used as a troop ship if needed in times of war. In terms of speed, she handily beat the luxurious British liners, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Ann, but the compromises for speed and military use made the SS United States unsuited for use as a luxury cruise ship.

Designed by William Francis Gibbs, one of the greatest ship designers, the high speed was achieved, in part, by making the ship very light. He used aluminum for the entire superstructure, the stuff above water level, making it the largest aluminum construction when built, 1951. Though larger than the Titanic, the United States is thinner and more pointy. Much lighter than the Queen Elizabeth or Queen Ann, she could go as fast backward as the Titanic could forward. The hull is doubled, with fuel stored between the layers as a protection from collisions and canon; the interior is highly compartmentalized too, to make her fairly unsinkable. This was confirmed when she survived a sea collision shortly after launch. Making the ship light on the top made the SS United States stable in wind and rough seas despite its narrow shape. There were two engine sections, divided into four engine rooms, done to increase the chances that the engines would survive an explosion or torpedo attack.

The interior design was American modern, and fire-proof, with few weighty decorations. Furnishings were fiberglass, steel or aluminum, for the most part, see picture below. The red, white, and blue stacks added to the American look. Both are used (recall that there are two engine rooms), and both have aluminum wings. These shield the deck from any sparks that might come out the stacks.

In the end, it was the crossing speed not the comfort level that doomed the SS United States. Even at a top speed of 44.1 mph, crossing the Atlantic took 3+ days. That could not compete with jet planes that travelled at 500 mph. I’ve argued that long range, “high speed” passenger trains make little sense for the same reason. Even at 100+ mph, few Americans will be willing to spend 36 hours traveling from Chicago to Seattle. Fast boats are useful, I think, but only in smaller size foreshorten trips, similar to the Hoverspeed.

5 blade propeller on display at Throg’s neck. Paired with a 4 blade propeller it reduced vibration and wear at high speed.

Also helping it reach the speeds it did, the SS United States benefitted from innovations in the engines and in the propellers. There were four engines, in two engine sections. These were modern, light weight, compact, steam turbines running at high pressures and temperatures: 975°F and 925 psi. Each turbine delivered 60,000 shaft hp to a variable-speed, geared shaft. The inboard propellers had 5 blades and the outboard (end of ship) had four. This difference in blade number was a secret, design innovation that allowed faster speed, without vibration and cavitation. The 5 blade propeller shown on display at left, accelerated the water, while the 4 blade accelerated it faster. At the time, this was secret technology. We now have some better propellers, though no faster ocean liners. The Hoverspeed uses water jet for propulsion, by the way.

Leaving the Delaware River heading to the Gulf of X

On its way to the bottom of the sea, the ship will first stop at MARS. That is not the planet Mars, but at an engineering firm, “Modern American Recycling Services” in Mobile Alabama, on The Gulf of X. There the MARS folks will prepare the ship to sink in an even way, where its supposed to; a way that works for scuba divers.

Robert Buxbaum, February 28, 2025. My sense is there is still room for steam power. I also think the US government should return to investing in US ship-building, especially for double-use, military and commercial, like this one. A new favorite phrase, from Ovid, Metamorphosis: “Omnia mutantur, nihil interit”. Everything changes, but nothing passes away. RIP, old friend.

Waffle house life and cardiac death

Leave a reply

Cardiac death rates vary by a factor of six or more across regions of the US, from very low rates in Arizona, Utah, Washington, about 1/1000/year, to well over 6/1000/year in the US southeast. This is shown in the map below based on CDC data from 2013, mapped by Dr. Robert-J using ArcGIS Pro in 2015, Source here.

The author of this graph humorously(?) overlayed the cardiac death data with yellow dots showing the location of all US waffle houses. I infer from this something that Dr. J. denies: that waffle houses, or waffle eating is a significant contributor to these cardiac deaths. Other possibilities (my own list) include opioids, pollution, low exercise, depression, and poor healthcare. Still, I can’t help thinking that diet is a big contributor.

Here is a more up-to-date map, by county, showing that cardiac deaths still concentrate in the southeast, but now they are joined by Nevada and eastern California. I downloaded this map directly from the CDC, but this time, the map is in terms of Age Adjusted Mortality Rates, that is lives lost per 100,000 persons, relative to some ideal, people living in Minnesota, Colorado, and Massachusetts, I suppose. As before, the red areas are those with a higher cardiac death rates. Why are West Californians healthier and folks in Minnesota and Colorado, perhaps because they exercise more, and exercise is a good thing, but these could also be areas with better healthcare, or fewer opioids. Some cities are healthier, some are worse. Why?.

Things have been getting worse in recent years. From 2019 to 2022, the national Cardio-vascular disease caused AAMR increased by 9.3%. Some of this may be COVID or the COVID vaccine, I suppose, or depression. Men seem to be hit harder than women, with the same regional differences. As shown in the map at right, southeast rural men have a lifespan more than 4 years shorter than the national average, or about 7 years shorter than that for women. And this is on top of their already significantly shorter lifespan compared to other developed countries. There’s no obvious reason.

As a marketing thought, assuming that the cause of cardiac death is that people eat high-carb, high fat meals, then the owners of Waffle House might have noticed, and chosen to build there. If so this would be a case where apparent causation is reversed: the relationship between Waffle houses and death is that Waffle houses were built where people were dying of heart disease. It’s a scary thought, but not unlikely. I’d expect new Waffle houses would appear in mid-Michigan, mid Georgia, northern New Jersey, and NW Indiana. These are places where people will likely like the food and ambiance. I’ve taken a light hearted view here because the alternative is too depressing. These rates are dramatic and horrible. I hope RFK Jr. will help increase US lifespans, but have no great faith in him. Trump gave him two years to show significant improvements.

Robert Buxbaum, February 24, 2025.