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Average number of lines in the Harper's Index : 40
Percentage change between the first Harper's Index, published in 1984,
and the current Harper's Index, in the average number of words per line
: +75
Ratio of the size of a line-stopping colon in a 1984 Harper's Index to that in a 2000 Index : 2:1
Longest number ever to appear in the Harper's Index : 363,000,000,000,000,000
Most negative number : -39,700,000,000
Smallest non-negative integer : 0
Percentage of issues of Harper's Magazine published in the last 150 years that include the Harper's Index : 10.7
Number of syllables in the word "sesquicentennial" : 6
Number in "150th" if you say "one hundred" but not "and" : 6
Number of words devoted to "thirtysomething" in the February 1989 Harper's Index : 11
Ratio of the number of lines in the March 1987 Harper's Index to that in December 1995 : 1:1
Ratio of May 1991 to August 1984 : 1:1
Ratio of January 2000 to February 1989 : 3:1
Number of lines serving as a carefully cadenced lead-up to the counterintuitive statistic above : 2
Number of book compilations of the Harper's Index published since its inception : 2
Number of documentaries released, since 1987, entitled "Inside the Harper's Index" : 0
Number released entitled "Down for the Count" : 0
Number released entitled "You Can Count On Us" : 0
Percentage of October Harper's Indexes between 1992 and 1997 that juxtapose
statistics about costumes, pumpkins or vampires with statistics about non-Halloween topics for comic effect
: 100
Average number of Harper's Indexes annually that, visually, on the page, when you look at them, are top-heavy : 4
Average number annually that, visually, on the page, when you look at them, are middle-heavy, or "fat-tummied" : 3
Average number annually that look like a beauuuuuutiful woman : 1
Number of times Paul Loeb of Seattle used the construction "I suggest" in his letter to the editor about a September 1992 Index statistic : 2
Percentage of statistics in the Harper's Index that are verified using primary sources : 100
Average percentage that are leftovers from a previous month's research : 20
Months after its inception that the Harper's Index began listing its sources : 11
Months after the French Revolution that the Harper's Index began listing its sources : 2,336
Total price of various wacky souvenir items listed in the January 1999 Index : $8,000
Phone number of the home of the Harper's Index, cleverly hidden within a ratio to preserve privacy : 6,146,500:1
Average length of two Harper's Indexes laid end to end, in Harper's Indexes : 2
Percentage of 1993 Harper's Indexes that demonstrate either that U.S. health care policy is a crock of shit or that Japanese people are pathologically selfless workaholics : 100
Number of children in 1987 trapped in a well and in the Harper's Index, respectively : 1, 0
Rank of the Harper's Index, regardless of whatever : 1
Figures cited have been typed into a computer and then converted into a series of zeroes and ones, which your computer then turns into the language we know as "English numbers," and are the latest available as of June 2000. "Harper's Index Index" is a redundant trademark.












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