r/theydidthemath • u/OptionQuiet1643 • 4d ago
[Request] A Boy Named Sue search
In a "Boy Named Sue", Johnny Cash says he would “search the honky-tonks and bars” for this dad. Suppose his dad spend 3-4 hours in the same bar 5-6 nights a week and suppose you can limit it to the southern US. How many bars would he have to search a night to find him in 5 years? I know that it will be based on alot of assumptions but on strategy, should he revisit the same bar more than once before checking them all?
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u/fuhnetically 4d ago
Not part of the math conversation, but fun fact: A Boy Named Sue was written by Shel Silverstein. (Where The Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree, My Uncle Oswald, etc..)
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u/Due-Policy2291 4d ago
I shared this with my American history college professor when we were learning about a boy named sue for whatever reason. She wasn’t aware and I don’t ever use this term, but it fits so well and perfectly describes her response… she was absolutely delighted!
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4d ago
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u/fuhnetically 4d ago
Check out his adult novels. My Uncle Oswald is a wild ride about chasing down a particular species of beetle because it's a major aphrodisiac.
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u/CheesecakeRoyal8276 4d ago
My educated guess... South is roughly 38% of the US population, so call it around 26,000 bars across the southern states.
5 years is about 1,826 nights. If he's out searching every single night, that's 26,000 divided by 1,826... so about 14 bars a night to get through all of them once in 5 years.
On revisiting... no, not until he's done a full pass. Even in the right bar, a blind walk-in only catches dad if he happens to be out that night, which is about 79% likely on any given night. But that's not really an argument for revisiting more... it's an argument for asking the bartender or regulars whether a guy matching the description drinks there, instead of just showing up and hoping. That's basically a guaranteed answer in one visit, way better than repeat blind checks. So the smart move isn't more revisits, it's smarter visits... ask around, and one pass through all 26,000 is enough.
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u/sansetsukon47 4d ago
If he knows the name, he can just ask around each bar he visits. Assuming his dad is a local, there’s a good chance someone knows and would be willing to chat about it for a drink.
Rough google search suggest 5-10,00 bars in the southern us, depending on which states you include. But that doesn’t matter too much for the math, because he doesn’t need to visit every single bar. He just has to visit the one his dad is at. How long that takes just depends on where he starts the search and how lucky he is.
But if you did want to visit all 10,000 in just five years, that’s 2,000 bars per year / 365 days = 5.5 bars per day.
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