No. 03
Why does chance fool us?
9:13 · 23 October 2026Episode notes →
Watch
The Mathomaly series
Short explainers about patterns that look certain and are not. Each episode ends on the explorations you can try yourself.
Latest episode
Why does chance fool us?
You bet on a pattern of three flips, I pick mine after you, and with one fair coin I win at least two games in three: whatever you pick, there is a pattern that beats it. A positive result from a 99% accurate test for a rare illness is right only about 1 time in 11, and a kidney-stone treatment can do better for small stones and for large ones yet worse overall: each time, we counted the wrong thing.
Chapters
- 0:00I pick secondTry it →
- 1:24One fair coinTry it →
- 3:50The 99% test
- 6:10Kidney stones
- 8:04Counting the wrong thing
All episodes
3 episodes
