Ben Blatt brought some serious science to bear on one of the most altering and illuminating questions of our time: Where is Waldo? His findings have revolutionized the search for our furtive little friend.

It may not be immediately clear from looking at this map, but my hunch that there’s a better way to hunt was right. There isn’t one corner of the page where Waldo is always hiding; readers would have already noticed if his patterns were so obvious. What we do see, as highlighted in the map below, is that 53 percent of the time Waldo is hiding within one of two 1.5-inch tall bands, one starting three inches from the bottom of the page and another one starting seven inches from the bottom, stretching across the spread.

Ben Blatt on Slate.com