Why is every shuffled pack of cards a miracle
We have seen here how
apparently 'likely' events are so improbable, but conversely
truly incredible events happen all the time.
Take a pack of 52 cards.
If the pack was well shuffled and you turned the cards over to reveal
that they came out in this 'perfect' sequence:
you would regard this as nothing short of a miracle. In fact, you
would probably regard it as a life changing moment that you would recount
to your grandchildren. Indeed, the probability that such an event would
happen is 1 divided by 52! (that is 52 x 51 x 50 x 49 x ....x 3 x 2 x 1) because 52! is the total number of possible
sequence of 52 playing cards. The number 52! is
8065817517094390000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
which is SUCH a big number that it is actually a bigger number than the number of atoms in the
universe (see http://pages.prodigy.net/jhonig/bignum/indx.html for
further information about big numbers).
So the probability of turning
over exactly this 'perfect' sequence of cards is less than the
probability of finding one specific atom in the entire universe. Yet,
the probability of getting the (apparently random) sequence of cards
that really is revealed is exactly the same as this tiny probability. So every sequence really is a miracle.
Norman Fenton
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