Happy Birthday! To, um, 18 million people

I just did a little arithmetic. According to Wikipedia the best guess for the population of earth as of July 2007 is 6,671,226,000 people. Hey, there are 365 days in the year (of course some years have an extra day due to leap year) so if you divide 365 into the 6 billion number you find out that for each day of the year 18,227,331 people have the same birthday! Isn't that awesome? So on your birthday you can have the satisfaction of knowing that just over 18 million people alive today have the same birthday (though not same year, obviously) as you!!

So now you know why I giggle (when I'm in a good mood) and frown (which is more and more my usual reaction) when astrologers get all crazy over famous historic people having the same birthdays as regular old folks of today and concluding that there must be some sort of "past life" connection. Well golly gosh! Abe Lincoln, for example, was born on February 12. There are over 18 million people alive today who also have a February 12 birthday! And the significance of that would be.... none whatsoever.

Grow up, astro idiots.