Whenever I read an article about a cure for peanut allergies (my daughter has a life threatening nut allergy), the articles always quote some researcher as saying it'll happen "in five years."

Curious about the popularity of "in five years," I googled the following terms:

"in two years" -- 1,320,000 results

"in five years" -- 1,420,000

"in ten years" -- 584,000

"in fifteen years" -- 59,000

"in twenty years" -- 176,000

"in fifty years" -- 74,300

"in a hundred years" -- 77,500

"in a thousand years" -- 56,300

"in ten thousand years" -- 3,370 (first hit is Cory!)

"in a hundred thousand years" -- 828

"in a million years" -- 202,000

"in a billion years" -- 5,410

"in a trillion years" -- 933

"in a quadrillion years" -- 51

"in a googol years" -- 38

"in a googolplex years" -- 2

"never" -- 296,000,000

"Never" wins by a huge margin, but "in five years" comes in second.

UPDATE: "in one year" barely beats "in five years" -- 1,490,000

Reader comment: Mark says: "I am a diabetic and have been for about 15 years. You get about one or two miracle / fantastic solutions promised for some facet of diabetes every year. Pancreatic implants, eyeball blood-glucose monitoring, nano-whatnot. I have also noticed that they are always promised in 4 yearly timeframes. Enquiring to a scientist friend of mine, he pointed out that this is the life-cycle of a research grant. At the end of which, all bets are off."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:30:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments