Can anyone provide me the author and title of a story I read long ago? The main part is that an academic started plotting the frequency of strange occurences, such as men deciding that skirts were more practical and comfortable to wear than pants. The resulting plot was an asymptotic curve, and the guy concluded the world would end (by bomb blast) around a particular date. I thought it must’ve been by either Ray Bradbury or Philip K. Dick - but still couldn’t find it.
My curiosity was rekindled recently when I learned that Henry Adams actually kept track of strange occurences and tried to learn something about the nature of reality by mathematical analysis of their frequency.
Thanks for any help!
It sounds like the short story “The Year of the Jackpot” by Robert A. Heinlein, anthologized in (among other places) his short story collection The Menace From Earth.
The story opens with the hero meeting the heroine, who has spontaneously decided to strip in a public place, without really knowing why–women spontaneously stripping in public places without really knowing why being one of the numerous odd trends he’s tracking–if that rings any bells.