Life Expectancy of a Shoe and its

Brothers
Chris Lessey
Introduction
Idea: Widespread research indicates using
multiple pairs of shoes increases the life
expectancy of all shoes.
Question: How many pairs of shoes should a
person buy at age 20 to last the rest of his/her
life?
Assumptions: Feet stop growing at 20 and
everyone dies at age 100.

Overview
A single pair of shoes
A pair of shoes with brothers
Collective life of shoes
Optimize
Results
What next?
A Single Pair of Shoes
Assumption: Shoes last about 2.5 years.
Parameters and Variables
l: life left in a pair of shoes
t: time
T: half life

A Pair of Shoes with Brothers
Assumption: A pair of shoes last 125% of its
original life expectancy for each of his
brothers.
New Parameters and Variables
s: number of brothers
E: expected extension of life by a single brother



Collective Life of Shoes
Assumption: the collective life of shoes is just
the sum of life left of all brothers.
New Parameters and Variables
L: collective life of shoes
Optimize
We want the to have at least one pair of
shoes worth of life at time of death (i.e., at
t=80 we want L>1).
We also want to minimize the number of
shoes purchased at age 20 such that the
above objective is met (i.e., smallest s such
that at t=80, L>1).
Optimize (continued)
Results
Having 176 brother pairs of shoes is the
smallest number of brothers (s) such that the
collective life of the shoes (L) is greater than 1
at age 100 (t=80).
Therefore, you should buy 177 pairs of shoes
at age 20 to last until you die.
Whats next?
Play with parameters E (expected extension of
life by brothers) and T (half life)
Account for different types of shoes
different types of wear and tear
different life expectancy of shoe
Extension to other resources (e.g., agriculture,
overfishing)