# Twice as cold?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twice-as-cold/175408>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 15, 2003, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twice-as-cold/175408 "2003-05-15T11:02:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twice-as-cold/175408/21 "2003-05-16T11:03:16Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> quoted from **Keeve**
> 
> I’ve wondered this problem for ages, and this seems like the right place to ask:
> 
> Suppose on one particular day, 40% of the people like the President, and 60% do not like him. Then, more people start liking him. Which poll results would lead you to say that “He is twice as popular as before.”
> 
> Would it be:
> 
> A) 80% for, 20% against, because twice as many people like him; or  
> B) 70% for, 30% against, because half as many people dislike him; or  
> C) Perhaps there is a different way to calculate it. It bothers me that A and B are such very different situations: In A, it is a 4 to 1 ratio, but in B it is merely 2.33 to 1.

I would say in this example it’s the **ratio** that’s important. In the original poll, the popularity is 40:60, i.e. 2 people like him for every 3 people that dislike him.

So to double in popularity, he needs to have **4** people liking him for every 3 people that dislike him, making a ratio of 4:3, or in percentage terms, about 57.14% for and 42.86% against.

How does that sound?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twice-as-cold/175408/22 "2003-05-16T11:38:49Z")

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I would have thought that ‘twice as cold’, if it has any validity or meaning whatever, must refer to the effect on human comfort; if it takes twenty minutes for your fingers to get frostbite at temperature X, then ‘twice as cold as X’ would be the temperature at which frostbite occurs in half the time.

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**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twice-as-cold/175408/23 "2003-05-16T14:00:44Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by r\_k \*  
> \*\*So to double in popularity, he needs to have 4 people liking him for every 3 people that dislike him, making a ratio of 4:3, or in percentage terms, about 57.14% for and 42.86% against. How does that sound? \*\*

Sounds great! That’s the “example C” that I was looking for. Thanks!

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