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Saturday, May 02, 2026
The sock drawer problem
In mathematics, there is a probability calculation known as the sock drawer problem. It asks how many single socks you need to draw from a sock drawer until you get a matching pair, if you have X different types of socks in that sock drawer. That assumes you have single socks in your sock drawer. Up to now, that hasn't been the case for me, because most of my socks are different from each other. Drawing socks one by one every morning to find a matching pair would have taken too long, as X is too large. Instead I sorted my socks after washing, where I had to deal with a smaller number of socks, and then rolled each pair into a ball.
I've been doing my own laundry for decades now. For a long time I even ironed my shirts, but since retirement I decided I can lower my dress code and live with unironed shirts. That resulted in the sorting of socks becoming the most time-consuming part of the laundry process. Being lazy, I wondered whether there wasn't a better solution. And I found a pretty trivial one: I got rid of all of my old socks, and bought 100 identical pairs of black socks on Temu. So now I can stock them as single socks, as the solution of the sock drawer problem mathematically is trivial if X equals 1. No more sock sorting after laundry for me!
The added advantage of this solution is that buying socks in bulk is rather cheap. My previous solution, of throwing socks away when they had a hole, and occasionally buying a new pair of socks when shopping for clothes, was a lot more expensive. I bought those hundred pairs of socks for less than $1 per pair. It is likely that they will last less long than more expensive socks, but with brand socks being sometimes ten times more expensive, it isn't obvious that they would last ten times as long.
- posted by Tobold @ 6:30 AM Permanent Link
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Sorting my socks after laundry is a little treat I always look forward to. Why would anyone want to deprive themselves of such a pleasure? (Not irony, just to be clear. I really enjoy it a lot!)
I did the same thing about a decade ago, except I bought nice socks that have a lifetime warranty. When they get holes in them I send them back to the manufacturer, they give me credit for a new pair and the cycle continues. They're called Darn Tough socks.
I could never put singles away though because my approach led to different wear rates. Since the socks I bought have light cushion I sort by wear rate since I can't stand having a used sock on one foot and a new sock on another. I can feel the few mm difference. I acknowledge my weirdness though...not as much as @Bhagpuss though, I fear he has human's in his freezer ;)
I could never put singles away though because my approach led to different wear rates. Since the socks I bought have light cushion I sort by wear rate since I can't stand having a used sock on one foot and a new sock on another. I can feel the few mm difference. I acknowledge my weirdness though...not as much as @Bhagpuss though, I fear he has human's in his freezer ;)
I've been following that strategy for years. Though individual socks never seem to have exactly the same colour and degree of wear, so I still have to match them up after washing.
Do the mathematics allow for the unsolved supernatural phenomena of your dryer eating one of the socks, making finding its pair impossible?
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# posted by 
: 2/5/26 17:55
: 2/5/26 17:55<< Home
