Reading David J. Hand’s The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day, it is clear why events with many preconditions and complex parts do actually occur daily. Hand is no lightweight but a retired professor from Imperial College, London. He writes very clearly and persuasively that improbable events happen for a couple of reasons that combine to make them happen. First, something will happen. Secondly, in today’s world, there are many things happening all the time.
Hand makes clear that given enough opportunities, very odd and unexpected things get to happen and do. One thing that Hand has not mentioned so far is the effect of communication. Given the number of government and commercial lotteries held continuously in the world, unexpected events pop up. Perhaps the one that gripped me the most was the case of a cautious and ambitious woman who bought a lottery ticket for the Massachusetts state lottery and a ticket for the Rhode Island state lottery. To be a complete winner, you have to get six numbers right. She did but maybe you guessed it: the six numbers on the Massachusetts ticket were the winning numbers in the Rhode Island lottery while her six numbers on the Rhode Island ticket were the winning numbers in the Massachusetts lottery.
You can see the place of communication. Without my knowing about Amazon and Hand’s book and David Hand learning through one means or another of the lady’s experience, this very odd and unexpected event would have happened but we wouldn’t be marveling over it. Without worldwide reporting, we would not know about some very surprising events and be very surprised by them. Unexpected events need many opportunities to happen and that means a big crowd and that calls for good communication and record-keeping among those in the crowd. Today, we have that going.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
