Clutching at Random Straws, Matt Parker | LMS Popular Lectures 2010

Comments · 990

• LI

  @liquorpos · 2 years ago (edited)

  “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”<br><br>This explains reading into horoscopes and so many other phenomena... &nbsp;Fooled by Randomness.

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• MU

  @MumboJ · 2 years ago

  My best mate had a card trick where he would just pull a random card from the deck and say &quot;Is this your card?&quot;<br>Most of the time it wasn&apos;t, but every 50 ish tries it would blow someone&apos;s mind.

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• TH

  @TheAdwatson · 5 years ago

  I once shared a club lottery by using Fibonacci numbers with someone who had never heard of them but happened to pick the same numbers.

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• DU

  @dunzerkug · 5 years ago

  I remember a statistics professor attempted to use the birthday problem on the first day in a class of 40 people, turned out we were in the ~11% chance of no one having the same birthday.

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• ST

  @stumbling · 6 years ago

  I like the idea of really OCD extra-terrestrials being like, &quot;Eeeeh, we&apos;re not really supposed to make contact with you humans but could you just move your site 120ft south so that it makes a perfect equilateral triangle with the other two? &nbsp;Otherwise that is going to bother me. &nbsp;Thanks.&quot;

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• US

  @user-qw1rx1dq6n · 2 years ago

  I love that this is basically comedy with a captive audience

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• TA

  @tasherratt · 10 years ago

  Matt doesn&apos;t need to do his entire homeopathic rant, just a:10,000 of it is just as effective.

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• NI

  @nicyelland6355 · 10 years ago

  I WAS BORN ON THE SAME DAY AS MY BIRTHDAY, COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!

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• AN

  @andynicholson7944 · 6 years ago

  My wife and I like to do cryptic crossword puzzles. It’s amazing how often simply knowing the other has solved a clue triggers the solution becoming clue to us.

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• PE

  @PenJahattt · 10 years ago

  Another great example is the Nebraska church explosion, where all 15 people were coincidentally late for their choir practice and so no one was injured in the explosion. Considering the probability of 15 people being late AND the probability of a church exploding on that very day, I&apos;m surprised it wasn&apos;t mentioned here

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• IS

  @ishashka · 6 years ago

  Rewatching this yet another time and once more I feel the inexplicable need to track down the girl that&apos;s chewing on her necklace and invite her to a maths party.

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• TH

  @TheRealFOSFOR · 10 years ago

  Youtube should have a mono/stereo option button...

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