The chances are, after a deck of cards are shuffled, the order of that deck is unique in history!

[Logical]

Meaning, in the history of the world, the shuffle you just did is most likely the first time that order of cards has ever happened!

The reason for this is that there are exactly 52 factorial (expressed in shorthand as 52!) possible orderings of the cards in a 52-card deck. This is approximately 8×1067 possible orderings or specifically 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 possibility's of different shuffled decks!

One fact I read was: If everyone on Earth shuffled a deck of cards properly randomly a billion times a year for a billion years, they wouldn't stand a chance of shuffling the same arrangement twice.

I thought this was amazing!!

Here are a couple of links that have more detail:

http://lookingglassclub.tumblr.com/post/24120741668/astounding-fact-1-a-shuffled-deck-of-cards-is-unique
http://www.matthewweathers.com/year2006/shuffling_cards.htm

[Taitertots]

1. Think about when they shuffle multiple decks together at a casino.

Five decks is 260!
260! = 383019586083616923511749798560449187527955675230909696019130081748065147513539953348528583827
542977391377338335929401010333333934424962406009974551133984962615380298039823284896547262282019684
886083204957952331370232766276012573259255195662202471247513988912210694031932404168831858361216670
833476372721673835310730484270700226143026548338520637683911007815690066342722080690052836580858013
635214371395680329589411560515139549326741170918835402355769344000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000

8 Decks is 416!
3.84^910 (910 Digits WTF!)

(Results from Wolfram Alpha)

[Logical]

2. That is why they are really big and pretty buildings! I always love the people who......

look at the history results on a roulette wheel and think it matters!

[PoliticAverse]

4. Roulette wheel history does matter, and people have made money on that fact. n/t

[Logical]

6. Link please. n-t

[PoliticAverse]

8. This is an early well known case...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jagger

Wheels can be imbalanced enough to give you a statistical edge, a fact you can determine by
analyzing past number history.

For some more discussion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roulette#Biased_wheels

[Logical]

9. Well, maybe in the 1800s. And I think you know that the.....

biased wheel has nothing to do with history but where the wheel is when the ball is let loose.

History tells you nothing in this century.

The history board on a wheel is used by some to predict the next number. It is worthless.

[PoliticAverse]

10. You must have missed the 1990 case discussed at the Wikipedia link.

This isn't 'gambler's fallacy' stuff.

[Logical]

11. So your claim is the last 10 rolls showing up on the display next to the wheel help decide what....

the future rolls will be?

[PoliticAverse]

12. No, 10 isn't enough. n/t

[Logical]

13. I can see tracking 100s of rolls on a defective wheel working. That is pretty...

cool idea actually.

The people I am talking about see 10 reds in a row and expect a black is due.

[PoliticAverse]

14. Yes, those people likely believe the Gambler's Fallacy...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy

[Logical]

19. Thanks for the links! nt

[Taitertots]

5. I read a story about a professor who would split his class in two...

Half would write down "Heads" or "Tails" in a matter that they thought would be random, the other half flipped a coin a couple hundred times. The professor would look at the lists and determine which group flipped their coin and which group tried to generate "random" results. It was a combinatorics class and he used the distribution of 6 and 7 streaks to determine which group was actually flipping their coin. Apparently there are a lot more 7 steaks than most people would expect.


The people looking at the history are hilarious.

[Logical]

7. Wow, interesting. The first day the lottery was open in Missouri.....

a friend of mine bought a ticket using 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. The clerk laughed at him and said "you know what the chances are of that number winning?". My friend said "The same as any other set of numbers". The clerk looked shocked.
People do not understand probabilities very well.

[Taitertots]

16. In all fairness, probability and statistics are really hard

You have to fight your intuition to think that 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 still has the same odds as any other number.


Ambrose Bierce - "Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math."

[Logical]

18. LOL, that is perfect! n-t

[okieinpain]

3. lol. mathematicians, crazy people. n/t.

[Xipe Totec]

15. There's a parallel universe out there where every shuffle of the deck comes out exactly the same....

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. Is that why we learned how to play bridge in my high school physics class?

[MiddleFingerMom]

20. ???

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