There’s a reason that magicians and casinos both can fool you and take your money.
It’s all about the math. The probability. The statistics.
It’s about identifying the key common trait that everybody has, but is afraid to admit. If a magician asks you to pick a card, which card do you always pick? Do you think of one card, and then immediately switch to some other card (saying to yourself, “aha! they wanted me to pick that first card that came to my head, but I’ll show them”)…. only to find yourself at the end looking directly at the magician presenting you with The Card You Picked!?!?:!
It’s not always luck.
The Grapes of Math:
How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life
That’s a little it that was found when ALEX BELLOS set up a website dedicated to find out what THE WORLD’S FAVORITE NUMBER was. (Being British, the website is, naturally, FAVOURITE NUMBER).
Over 44,000 people submitted what they had selected as their FAVORITE NUMBER to Alex’s database, along with an explanation of why that number happened to be their favorite.
There were three numbers that stood out amongst all the submitted entries as being The Most Favorite Numbers in the Whole World:
- The number eight (8) was in third place
- The number three (3) came in second place
- The number one number, the favoritest number of them all?
Seven. (7)
So what was the least favorite number in the entire database? 110