Theory: “Polarik” on the Investigating Obama blog made a statement that piqued my interest being a mathematician and vital statistics expert. Here’s what he said:

The Certificate Number … a CHRONOLOGICAL & SEQUENTIAL INDEX which is assigned on January 1 for the birth year and is incremented each time a birth record is created…

There were about 14,000 births in 1961, and #10,641 [the number on the Barack Obama COLB] is bit low for someone allegedly born on August 4th as far fewer babies are born in the last quarter of the year than the second and third quarters.

Facts: To start off with, Polarik’s birth figure is far off from the actual number. According to Vital Statistics of the United States – 1961, Page 3-15 (# 158 in the PDF) published by the U. S. Department of Health Education & Welfare there were 17,616 births in the State of Hawaii in 1961.

I’m not sure what Polarik’s remark, “far fewer babies are born in the last quarter of the year than the second and third quarters” is supposed to tell us since Barack Obama’s certificate dates his birth in the 3rd quarter. In any case it isn’t true. Hawaiian births are spread pretty evenly across the year. While quarterly breakdowns for 1961 were not available for this analysis, data from 1996, the earliest year available online from the Hawaii Department of Health, was examined, and showed percentages of births for the State of Hawaii to be 25.4%, 24.1%, 25.7% and 24.7% for quarters 1-4 respectively.

Analysis: Applying this percentage breakdown to 1961 totals for the first half of the year, we would have 49.5% * 17,616 = 8,732. Add to that a prorated 34 days (July 1 – August 4) of the 25.7% of births for the third quarter (I have a Master’s Degree in Mathematics, Ron) or 1,691. So the estimated certificate number for someone born around August 4, 1961 would be 8,732 + 1,691 = 10,423  and the Obama’s certificate number is 10,641 or within 2% of where it was estimated.

Conclusion: There is nothing at all out of line in the Barack Obama COLB Certificate number.

[I discovered an independent analysis, making a reasonable assumption that births were evenly distributed throughout the year, arrived at similar numbers. That report is on FreeRepublic.com]

Update: Polarik responded to the analysis over on FreeRepublic.com, saying he had used the numbers from Honolulu instead of the whole state by accident. He still got the wrong answer, even using the Honolulu numbers and what explains Ron’s bogus statement about how births in Hawaii are noe distributed across the year.