How unlucky...

Well, the worst is over. I have failed to do more than 2 and a half questions in the dreadful geometry test. Terrifyingly unlucky, since I forgot to study Ceva's Theorem due to a lack of comprehension... and that was what came out. 2 times out of 5.

Incidentally, (maybe not, that intro was just to link up, why am I saying all this?) luck is one truly misunderstood phenomenon. How many times have you heard people saying "What a cute kid! You're so lucky?" Well, I haven't and the meaning of luck (pure chance) is wrong there, unless you quantify it by saying "...I've been trying 462 times and they all look like they've come from Mercury." Exaggeration. Where would we be without it?

Luck is the topic of Discovery Channel's "Million 2 One", a program where they explore the unusual, one-in-a-million sort of coincidences. Well, even rarer than that, so they claim. During the show, they give tales of wonderfully absurd coincidences, mathematical (apparent) paradoxes and stuff that either look like they defy the odds or do indeed. One thing I'd like to know: Where do they get their numbers?

They say something about slicing bagels in half, and the chance of getting your finger cut if you take "sin(angle off the table) / something or other"... seems a little far-fetched to quantify their formula. What units would you take all the measurements in? Is the formula even correct? Does anyone care? (I do, but only to poke fun at their maths.)

Calling someone up by mistake, and finding it's your long-lost second identical triplet 8 times removed, standing by a public phone in Siberia. How on earth do they get the numbers for the chance of standing next to a phone in Siberia, answering it, or the number of people who have nothing better to do than answer that phone? Pure conjecture, I would guess.

Finding your lost wallet 2 weeks after you lost it at the bottom of a scuba-diving practice area of the sea. Oh wow, like they can even calculate the odds on that; kudos to them saying the odds are "incalculable." They realise it.

Quantifying such strange things is really none of our business, neither is it accurate. The formulae, chances, units are all entwined in a mesh of speculation. Only when the unexpected happens to us do we care about what's happened, not why. Given the number of people in the world, it's likely that the unlikely will happen (cool) and we shouldn't really attempt to count the odds on those. Odds are that you'll fail, and I'd take that wager.