How a mathematician dissects a coincidence

[doodelay]

People are saying the moral of this story is "don't share click bait, " but this isn't the takeaway at all. The lesson here is when confronted with a coincidence, one must immediately demystify it by looking for hidden variables. That is, look for nonobvious factors that increase the likelihood of such an occurrence. You will become a more clever person in doing so.

[Groaker]

Math: ruining fun for everyone but in a fun way.

[leoncampa]

Coincidences happen all the time. For every coincidence that happens and we notice, there is an endless number of coincidences that don't happen and we don't even realize possible... until they happen.

You could be hit by thunder
Win the lottery
See a meteor burn up in the sky.
Find a $200 bank note just lying on the street.

All of these are just a few of an infinite amount of unlikely scenarios that just never happen to you... until one does, and people call it fate...

[bolerie]

If you are the type of person who forwards emails containing clickbaity news stories about "coincidences", you are the problem with this world.

[samatarahmed]

moral of the forwarding stupid clickbaity spam

[transformersloverjon]

It all depends on when you begin the calculation. If you factor in the odds of Anne Parish becoming a children's author, the odds of her marrying that particular man, the odds of that book being given away, the odds of the estate being liquidated, the odds of it surviving the entire process, and other variables we have no clue about, then they get very interesting very quickly.

[YoussefKhaledYoussef]

Am I the only one who wants this job? Investigative Mathematician.

[rushofblood]

It really bothers me how many unread emails there are on that phone

[yashwinning]

Okay but how long does it actually take to make a video like this? And who the hell makes those seriously amazing animations I wanna thank them personally.

[youreallinsane]

The easiest way to say it is: The world has infinite opportunities for coincidences.

[Lulink]

Just the fact that she is not the only person to who such a story could have happened and that countless other incredible sounding stories could have happened to her in her life makes that event really mundane. What if she discovered the book had been carved and had tons of money or secret documents in it? what if somebody else bought the book and he happened to know her?

You see, there are so many events that one would call incredible, that the odds of one of them happening are quite high.

It's like if you were surprised to draw all the aces in a card game one after another: you would be surprised, but so would you have if you had drawn 4 kings for exemple, while drawing 4 other cards at random would have seemed mundane when the odds were actually the same for those 4 cards to be drawn as for drawing 4 of the specified value.

Our brain is made to recognize patterns: that's how we addapt to new situations, learn how to speek and even get curious enough to scientifically test things we could asume to be true.

[sergioD]

Really who still shares stuff via email?

[samysaid]

this didn't feel like a vox video for some reason.

[mikeRoweSoftLee]

I love how good you guys are getting at these video essays.
thank you

[avarah]

The probabilities around the trip to Paris and her book being there I mostly buy, but finding the book still feels like a million to one shot. Those book stalls are endless and cluttered and disorganized. Even if you knew your book was in there somewhere, finding it would be incredibly lucky. .

[TheNeverposts]

this is actually called 'Synchronicity'; when a symbolic event implies causation without actually having anything to do with causation.

[MrBledi]

Thank you VOX.
For all the love and for all the effort you put in all these videos!!

[markotark]

I flew from Finland to Thailand to spend my holiday there. Went to a particular open air bar for the first time and after 5 minutes i heard my name being called out, just to see a guy who had been my neighbour in Finland 3 years ago. We hadn't talked in years and had no idea of each others travel-plans. So, whats the explanation?
Thailand is one of the most popular tourist-destinations for us Finns, we had both used the most popular travel-agency and had been put into the largest hotel that they co-oprated with in Thailand. Also the Bar was the closest one to this hotel and many of the people that said in the hotel visited it at least once during their trip... So, if i were to see somebody i know outside of Finland, it would most likely be in place like that. Nothing magical about it...

[wellslapmyassandcallmesall]

whats the odds of me watching this video after I failed my math exam? I dont know because I failed my math exam

[tdann]

Kept getting distracted looking for my phone when the vibrate sounded in the video.