City Statistics

As of this post, there are an estimated 6.6 billion people living on this planet right now.

Of those 6 billion, a little over 300 million people live right here in the United States.

Now, about 8 million of those people live in New York City alone. Which, when you think about it, is a pretty big number for one city alone. About .1% of the world’s population.

Drilling down even further, there are about 4.9 million subway patrons every day in New York City. This isn’t including buses, either. So, according to these figures, almost 2/3rds of people living in New York City use the subway system each and every day.

Stick with me, now, we’re almost there. This means that about 1.6% of the United States’ population travels through the tunnels of NYC on a daily basis. Or, to put it into broader terms, .07% of the world travels this city’s subway system, each and every day.

Now, kids. With the N and W trains traveling east towards Queens at about 35 mph, making for an average door to door travel time of 30 minutes, can someone tell me, using the information you have been given above, what the odds are that John will ride the same train car as the woman who threatens to squirt her milk at those who don’t give up their seat.

Bonus points for telling me the velocity at which said milk would have ejaculated towards intended target.

Please show your work. Penmanship counts.