Probabilities are part of a magicians bag of tricks. The magic behind the ‘magic’. The probability of drawing a particular card from a deck is 52:1. The probability of drawing four particular cards from a standard deck look like:
1/52 x 1/51 x1/50 x 1/49 = 4/6497400 or 1,624,350:1
A magician narrows the odds in their favour sorting, palming or forcing the card until there is very little probability of failure.
My… friends and I were recently told we are part of a group of rare individuals. Think of it like a rare gift, a random very rare gift.
How rare?
Well, that’s what started me thinking. Hard numbers have been hard to come by so I’ve had to guesstimate a few. I know of about 30 individuals who may also have the gift. Thirty in a city the size of New Orleans. Of finding someone with the gift in that population, the probability is 13109:1. Very rare indeed.
Now the four of us were found a the same time so the math for that looks something like:
1/13109 x 1/13109 x 1/13109 x 1/13109 =
4/1661041836086161 or 415,260,459,021,540:1
That’s hundreds of trillions to 1 chance of finding all four of us at the same time. When you consider, two of us are…out of towners the odds of finding us all together are not worth speaking about.
So, what do I deduce from this?
Well, probability could be wrong, or at least my maths. Maybe the gift is not as rare as they would like to think. That’s how my friends will probably want to think of it.
I think like a magician. I think about ways of shortening the odds, palming or forcing the individuals where I want them, making situations that concentrates those individuals and put them right where I want them. That’s worth a ponder.
Whose controlling the hand to bring four individuals together on a dark rainy night in the middle of nowhere? Who has that sort of influence and power?
And
For what purpose?
A Strange Life 