Editor:
I would like to correct Steven Weeks in his "Beware of squirrels, fetuses and 'Big Lie' (Sept. 15)." Given that a college woman's probability of experiencing sexual assault in a year is p, then the probability of her experiencing sexual assault in n out of m years is:
The statement, "one out of six college women experience sexual assault every year" is, however, ambiguous. It could be taken that a college woman's probability of experiencing sexual assault in a year is ~n, 16.7, but it could also be taken that 16.7 percent of college women do not go a year without being sexually assaulted.
Jeff Saruwatari
B.S. Engineering Mathematics 1993