London: Couples wondering if true love will last need not visit astrologers, for a mathematical model by a top Oxford don may provide the answer.
A team led by Professor James Murray, a maths expert at Oxford University, have perfected a model whereby they can calculate whether the relationship will succeed or fail.
"I am still absolutely amazed that human emotions can be put into a mathematical model and that a prediction can be made," Murray was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph newspaper on Thursday.
In a study of 700 couples, the professor predicted the divorce rate with 94 per cent accuracy after they subjected themselves to a mathematical test, the British daily said.
Murray's calculations were based on the simplest of things - a 15-minute conversation between a couple on contentious issues, such as money, sex, or relations with the in-laws.
Ranging from plus four to minus four, Professor Murray awarded positive or negative points depending on the conversation.
Professor Murray, a Fellow of The Royal Society, said the scores of the wife and the husband were fed into the mathematical model and plotted onto a graph. The point at which the two lines meet illustrated the marriage's chances of success or failure.
He said "most stable relationships are those which take a more old-fashioned view and see marriage as mainly about companionship."
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