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

Did aliens help prehistoric Britons find the ancient Woolworths civilisation? And what does tying your shoelaces have to do with DNA? Matt Parker explores how seemingly incredible results can actually be meaningless random patterns.
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[@liquorpos]

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

[@supernova743]

Horoscopes are selection bias. Theyre broad and people choose to remember only the times it worked. Since the horoscoped are broad they generally fit to anyone.

[@MumboJ]

My best mate had a card trick where he would just pull a random card from the deck and say "Is this your card?" Most of the time it wasn't, but every 50 ish tries it would blow someone's mind.

[@dunzerkug]

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.

[@soupisfornoobs4081]

Statistics cancelled

[@kendomyers]

I hope he quit his job in shame Edit: or she

[@Raison_d-etre]

Maybe there was a liar in the class. But yeah.

[@kendomyers]

@Topher The11th Actually I aced all statistics focused math courses I took Was meant to be a joke

[@provokedfob]

​@@topherthe11th23oooops, turned out by trying to shame someone, you've only shamed yourself mate 🤣

[@user-qw1rx1dq6n]

I love that this is basically comedy with a captive audience

[@samuelwoods6648]

You might like Stewart Lee

[@Swingingbells]

Given the mention of tickets, I think it's entirely reasonable to assume the audience are 100% opt-in to that 'captivity' 😅

[@jamesfenimore174]

Social chaos

[@djcfrompt]

"That's the great thing about comedy in the Soviet Union: you have captured audience!" -Yakov Smirnoff

[@stumbling]

I like the idea of really OCD extra-terrestrials being like, "Eeeeh, we'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? Otherwise that is going to bother me. Thanks."

[@TheAdwatson]

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.

[@tasherratt]

Matt doesn't need to do his entire homeopathic rant, just a:10,000 of it is just as effective.

[@robertlinke2666]

Bravo sir, wel done

[@lauraireson6358]

+

[@andystith871]

Lol

[@inyobill]

… or quite more effective than Homoeopathy.

[@ben9089]

This was amazing

[@Anvilshock]

My left ear feels significantly underlectured ... Well done, LMS, way to collect unbiased samples!

[@andynicholson7944]

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.

[@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681]

makes sense, is reason many ppl get false positiv ideas about telepathic stuff. you know what she knows. so knowing she solved it tells you for example, it´s something in the realm of her knowledge. so if you both do know nothing about computers and history, you can be shure, the answer isnt related to these topics. but in reality the topic becomes so much more complex and is good for some mindbending

[@gasun1274]

@@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681 am yisrael chai

[@genericuser77]

I used to have that experience when watching Jeopardy - when I "knew that I knew it," then I could quickly come up with the answer with less thought and stress.

[@FreezingmoonDSBM]

I am the exact same way!! Me and my dad do cryptic crosswords together (and other puzzles, such as the national puzzlers league, which I highly recommend). I feel like I know what he can and can’t solve (eg. he doesn’t know any pop culture, and he knows lots of obscure words), so when I know that he was able to solve one, I know what type of puzzle it must be.

[@nicyelland6355]

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

[@rikwisselink-bijker]

That screenshot physically hurt.

[@AP12uZvfvag]

I think it was a virgin birth. Not in the sense that Nic's mother was a virgin, but that she gave birth to someone who will forever stay a virgin.

[@namewarvergeben]

If you're alone in a room, everyone in the room has the same birthday as you!

[@stan.rarick8556]

@Nic Yelland Me too. Scary spooky

[@perryreasch1499]

how can you not be born on your birthday ???

[@TheRealFOSFOR]

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

[@ankushmenat]

Use linux. You can have specific audio output settings to ignore stereo. It's also switchable on the fly.

[@soupcomfreak]

I think most would argue that that is a slightly excessive response. In a similarly nerdy vein though, you could make a switch on your auxilary cable that combines and separates the channels.

[@najroe]

alao a switch with series/parallel then a mono/stereo and why not a switch to invert the sound (pushing air when supposed to pull) and right to left switch. I have one for my DX radio listening, switching phones around and using audio filters (a box giving me switchable bandpass or low/high pass with differing pass frequency) this allows me to sometimes dig out a weak/distorted/noisy signal out enough to understand it, exact reason why has to do with rthe way the brain processes sound and how our ears work, it is wort it in some cases it can give me an percieved extra 3db signal to noise ratio

[@DanTheStripe]

Only plug your headphones in half the way, that should do it!

[@NearCry91]

Copy url, paste in to VLC's "Open Network Stream..." and go to Audio -> Stereo Mode -> Right

[@EebstertheGreat]

My favorite backmasked song is "Fire On High" by the Electric Light Orchestra. To poke fun at people searching for these patterns in random noise, they genuinely did start the song with a reversed section of speech. When played normally of course, it is unintelligible noise, but when played backwards, it says "The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back, turn back, turn back, turn back." ELO isn't the only group to have done this, but it's the best example I know of.

[@SimonBuchanNz]

The 2016 Doom soundtrack added "Jesus loves you", which was adorable. Notably, they have to come out and tell people that these deliberate backmasks are done.

[@omikronweapon]

Weird Al's "I remember Larry" has the message "Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands."

[@corysample3628]

Pink floyds "empty spaces" has this conversation backwards before the lyrics, -Hello looker... Congratulations. You have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont... -Roger! Carolyne's on the phone! -Okay.

[@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681]

i once made a disstrack that started with a "jesus forgive me for this" and the topic was all about " i dont want to do this, but you dissing first, is forcing me, in my role as battle mc. why do you do this to yourself"

[@rareroe305]

The main guitar riff in Marilyn Manson's 'The Beautiful People' is the same forwards and backwards. And boy did I find a lot of videos talking about secret messages in those songs when they're played backwards while looking for that.

[@RumcajsRozbojnik88]

"Call out you birthday" *Twins sit in front row :P

[@q1w2e3621]

RumcajsRozbojnik88 +

[@feronanthus9756]

That was solved with ZF set theory with the axiom of choice (aka ZFC set theory). Now we can choose which twin counts as the real person.

[@nicosmind3]

From one egg. Therefore delicious

[@noeljonsson3578]

@@feronanthus9756 I can’t stop thinking Soviet womble when I hear ZF as in the ZF clan.

[@ItsTheSentientToaster]

@@noeljonsson3578 glad I'm not the only one who thougth that.

[@chinareds54]

36:50 "If something amazing does happen, then that's kind of your allotment... it doesn't mean it's unexpected." So basically, as John Green put it "the way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us."

[@BadWebDiver]

Yep; same idea.

[@godlyvex5543]

In a video game, I was looking for a particular item that dropped from a rare enemy. This enemy drops 1 of 4 different items, so the chance of it dropping the one I wanted was 25%. I killed 43 of this enemy and only on the 43rd kill did I get this item. It's a fairly inconsequential part of my life, but I still hold it dear as one of the most unlikely things to happen to me. And I am positive that I did not just miss the item dropping, because it always drops 1 of 4 items, so I kept the other items as proof to myself that I didn't just miss it.

[@Hapetiitti]

@@godlyvex5543 I once made an Undead team in Blood Bowl 2 because I was tired of my players dying and being injured and wanted to capitalize on their regeneration ability. The way it works is any time a player suffers a casualty, a d6 is rolled, and on a 4+ the player immediately jumps back on their feet fully healed (on a 1-3 nothing happens, the player suffers the casualty). So it's a 50/50 chance of success, the same as flipping a coin. In the first game one of my valuable players got tackled hard and died. He failed his regeneration roll. I had a few more casualties that game, and failed those too. And so on in the following games. 13 times in a row. I flipped 13 tails in a row before my first success. Then I rolled another 5 or so failures before my 2nd and last success in that season. I haven't played with that team again. It was a 1/8192 chance. About 0.01%. And I'm not just estimating either, I kept track of each roll. It wasn't very fun, but it was interesting. Definitely the unluckiest team I've ever coached, or even seen. But I guess something had to make up for my luckiest team ever, where two separate players (the two most important ones on the team) rolled double sixes on level-up twice in a row, which is another 1/1024 chance *2.

[@Texan_BoyKisser]

@@godlyvex5543Damn, replied to a six year old comment. Anyways, 42 consecutive kills without that 25% drop is about a 1/175k (0.0006%) chance. The chances of being struck by lightning is over eleven times greater than that (in the US).

[@PenJahattt]

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'm surprised it wasn't mentioned here

[@aman-qj5sx]

In India it would be much more unlikely anyone was on time

[@jensraab2902]

@PenJahat: Two things to consider. 1. Imagine all 15 people being late and the church NOT exploding. Would that be reported in the press? Hardly. It might happen a lot. (For example, in India!) 2. Regarding the late arrival of 15. Are these events statistically independent? Maybe not. Let's say the singers shared cars and arrived in 5 cars with 3 singers each. That means that 5 cars arrived late. Sounds less impressive already, right? What if two or three cars came through the same spot where due to some event traffic was slowed down. Or maybe it had been snowing heavily and all cars had to drive more carefully. (I'm not even American so I don't know if it even snows in Nebraska but you get the idea.) Now, the 15 singers arriving late all of a sudden doesn't sound impressive anymore at all.

[@albertbatfinder5240]

I think the bus system here has adopted late arrival as a safety measure. So far, no casualties.

[@jensraab2902]

@J All I know about this incident is was the OP was posting so I'll take you at your word. Anyway, I wasn't claiming that several of the choir members did share a ride, I just wanted to show that there could be factors that would make the story less unlikely (and less unspectacular) if reported. Also, having sung in choirs myself, I have often seen people share rides so the idea didn't seem too far-fetched to me. :-) Do you know if this episode can be viewed somewhere?

[@NathanTAK]

@@jensraab2902 I AM American and I also don't know if it snows in Nebraska

[@pranamd1]

Was this filmed using Matt's 10,000 Domino Computer?

[@romanr9883]

+pranamd1 isnt not that bad

[@schadenfreudebuddha]

classic Parker square!

[@zeddash]

Worse, it was filmed in 2010

[@YiZongOng]

maybe on a spreadsheet?🤔

[@koschanothere]

pranamd1 I just saw my maths teacher!!!

[@FourthRoot]

I once showed by ID to a clerk who had the same birthday AND year. He was blown away. Assuming I show my ID about once a week to people between 7000 and 25000 days old I doubt that will ever happen again.

[@richtomlinson7090]

I had a 1st grade class where 4 of us had the same birthday. Also it's the same as Betty White, Al Capone and BenjaminFranklin, but not the same year as my class.

[@johnnye87]

It's interesting: it's counterintuitive that the answer to the birthday problem is so low when the problem is presented in the abstract, but when you're actually watching a group of people list off their birthdays, I found myself intuitively surprised that nobody had heard their birthday yet.

[@diabl2master]

This shows that if you think about the problem differently, intuition will come. If you had imagined the process happening, you might have got a better intuition.

[@TheRavenCoder]

From snopes: "Q33NY was not the flight or tail number of either of the planes that were crashed into the World Trade Center that day". Just goes to prove the whole point of Matt's talk. Wingdings is a big data set, so if you type in random numbers & letters, you're bound to find patterns.

[@blechtic]

There's already that old classic "NYC" for casual antisemitism.

[@TheRavenCoder]

@@blechtic which Microsoft made sure didn't happen again with Webdings, making it an "I ♥️ NYC" joke

[@harmonicproportions6588]

Israel did do 9/11 tho

[@TheAwillz]

That’s not the point at all

[@sofachrome]

Lol, citing Snopes and expecting to be taken seriously 😂

[@kcgunesq]

My sister has visited Europe three times. Twice, she met people she knew from home that she didn't know were going to be in Europe at the same time. Then again, the people she knows at home are likely to have similar interest, so it isn't that surprising that they would want to visit the the same types of places.

[@robert9016]

Rich people

[@kcgunesq]

@@robert9016 Not really. She was working on her masters in Theology at a Catholic school and at least two of the trips were related to her studies. She stayed in a convent on at least one of the trips.

[@r8gg]

​@@kcgunesqLol.

[@RiverMersey]

Seems that I've watched the entire Matt Parker back-catalogue - KZbin algorithm today recommends this: recorded 10 years ago!

[@gevmage]

This is brilliant. Every journalist and every scientist needs to watch this, and watch it again every month or so.

[@Huntracony]

It's probably long overdue for your monthly rewatch.

[@poproporpo]

It's probably long overdue for your monthly rewatch.

[@Andrew-iv5dq]

There is a good book called Innumeracy by Poulos that goes into lots more probability that people should know but don’t.

[@tenv]

It's probably long overdue for your monthly rewatch.

[@amelted]

It's probably long overdue for your monthly rewatch.

[@TrainTsarFun]

I wish my employer understood the measurements they come up with to rate performance of employees. I literally have measurements that are mathematically impossible to make and they constantly change to other numbers I cannot do. A lot of it are percentages. I tried explaining it mathematically and they just say “try harder.” Essentially it’s like I’m shooting free throws in a basketball game and I have two shots. My manager says all we need is for you to make three.

[@Jimorian]

Along those lines, a friend of mine managed a retail goods store, and when the regional manager visited, they were talking about how each department was doing. Each category was measured by a percentage of total store sales. So for example, furniture may be 4.2% of the store's total sales. They talked about categories with growing relative sales, and the regional manager was happy. They got to the departments with falling sales compared to the rest, and the regional manager wasn't happy. "I want each of these categories to go up by 1% by my next visit". "OK" says my friend. "Which of the other categories can go down to compensate?" "None of them, I want them ALL to go up." "You do understand that if they all add to 100%, they can't *all* go up at the same time." "I don't want to hear excuses, I just want results!" And that's how the meeting ended. My friend got a different job within a year.

[@nb3775]

@@comedicsketches why does he have to explain if the manager can't grasp simple Maths

[@leonardsalt]

@@comedicsketches Shouldn't report change in departments relative to total as indicators of performance or growth, but as a statistic on how customer preferences evolve over time. Instead, you should reporting growth in a particular section relative to itself the year before. This is also more meaningful in the context mr boss is concerned, as it means 1% more income from that area, and there is no room for a department to have an increase in percentage due to all others going down. Smart thing would have been to say "increasing that percentage wouldn't translate into more income, may I suggest measuring revenue instead?" Alternatively, you can report next visit's relative performance as relative to the original visit's total. That way you are technically doing what you were told, and you are still reporting meaningful data.

[@JivanPal]

Just like there is a mono toggle in the preferences for Windows and most Linux distros, there is also one in macOS: [System Preferences] > [Accessibility] > [Audio] > [Play stereo audio as mono]

[@leonardsalt]

@@JivanPal wrong thread bro

[@ishashka]

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

[@robinisomaa]

Freddie Mercury is obviously singing "Fight the power, Moana"

[@gliesegliese1411]

I seen this comment before hearing the song, and thats what i heard ;)

[@weerwolfproductions]

@@gliesegliese1411 "Inside the tub, no wine now" is what I heard.

[@charlessaintpe8574]

This is a great comment to see with no context.

[@sillysausage4549]

@@charlessaintpe8574 it is discussed in the video. There is 100% context.

[@charlessaintpe8574]

@@sillysausage4549 I understand that the context exists. I watched the video. I was just pointing out how amusing it is to read that comment when you don't have the context.

[@notafuckwasgiven]

My personal experience with the birthday problem was when I was in a group with 5 other people and we all shared a birthday with another person in the group. It was made even more exciting due to the fact that me and my birthday buddy were the last to be discovered and I decided to say, "At least I know we won't share a birthday, I was born on Dec 24."

[@r8gg]

Lol that's brilliant

[@dragoncurveenthusiast]

The conclusion of this talk is so important! More people should be aware of the pitfalls of seeing patterns where there are none.

[@aceman0000099]

More people should be aware of the pitfalls of seeing patterns where there are none.

[@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681]

not exactly, the truth is, there is only caos and sometimes, our patternfilter catches aspects of that caos in a fitting way. there was never a REALpattern in the first place

[@Huntracony]

Why does this video from 2010 look like it's from 1995?

[@michaelbuckers]

You can get authentic 1995 looking footage by using a camcoder from 1995.

[@panda4247]

because what Mi 28 said, and nobody cared to deinterlace before uploading to youtube

[@alspezial2747]

maybe you where born in 1995 and your eyes didn't get better since.

[@joostvandervelde]

A combination of interlacing as panda said, but also because of the 3:4 aspect ratio and the 480/360dpi quality, I think the editor exported the video in Pal settings.

[@koogco]

@@joostvandervelde they are recording for a dvd aparently, so yeah.

[@chrisharrison763]

57:40 For the content highlighted in the thumbnail (9/11 font)

[@error.418]

+Chris Harrison Also, a better answer to the question about the Wingdings related to the 9/11 tragedy is: Q33NY, a well placed hoax in September 2001, as reported, wasn't the flight number of one of the terrorist planes. It was AA 077, AA 011, UA 093 and UA 175.

[@johnniewalker39]

Thank you!

[@aceman0000099]

@@error.418 that actually makes a lot of sense wow why didn't I realize it'd be AA not NY in the flight code

[@cassanth]

Also Q is the flight code for Qantas, which was not one of the airlines that crashed that day.

[@illustriouschin]

Thank you.

[@albertbatfinder5240]

If in the first act you hang a piano on the wall, then in a subsequent act, it must be played.

[@diarya5573]

I think there wasn't any prediction for piano in that bible code, which is why Matt decided to forego it

[@adivp7]

This talk is more important now than ever.

[@ThatGuyMagnum]

Joke in the right ear, laughter in the left.

[@itisonlyadream]

It's not necessary to play records backwards to experience the weird audio interpretation effect demonstrated in the lecture, it happens naturally in popular rock songs when it's difficult to understand the lyrics. I used to fill in the difficult to understand lyrics found in some rock songs with my best guess. After the Internet came along, I decided to find out what the words to some old songs really were. The most amazing thing I learned was that many people heard exactly the same imaginary lyrics I did. An example occurs in the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Bad Moon Rising. John Fogerty is actually singing "There's a bad moon on the rise" but it sounds to many people like he's singing "There's a bathroom on the right". I'm now in my eighties, and when I bring this up to people in my age group, I discover that many people who heard this song in 1969 also thought those were the words Fogerty was singing, even though those words made absolutely no sense in the context of the song. I'm not bashing Creedence Clearwater Revival, I love that band. It's just one example of how the mind will try to make sense out of things it doesn't understand.

[@diabl2master]

The name is literally called Bad Moon Rising, how can you mis-hear that

[@itisonlyadream]

​@@diabl2master To answer your question: I misheard those lyrics for most of my life, because I never knew the title of that song is Bad Moon Rising until recently. The phrase "There's a bad moon on the rise" sounds like "There's a bathroom on the right" when you don't know the name of the song to use as a reference. The lyrics were not clear when I heard that song on the car radio, in a night club, or in some other noisy environment. If you want to nitpick, then the word mishear is not spelled "mis-hear" (the way you wrote it). Why didn't you know mishear is one word? It's probably because you heard the word, but you never saw mishear written down, so you made an assumption that it's a hyphenated word. Well, I never saw the title of the song Bad Moon Rising written down until recently and I made an assumption about some of the words in that song fifty years ago. I didn't know the name of every song in those days. Songs like Bad Moon Rising were only background music in my life. When that song was first released, I was too poor to buy record albums, so I rarely saw the name of songs written down. I heard popular rock music on the radio, where the name of the song either wasn't mentioned, or I tuned in during the middle of the song. In some cases, I heard the song playing in a dance club, or on a jukebox in a diner, or in some other loud place where the lyrics of the song were hard to hear and the name of the song wasn't announced. It's not unusual for people to get song lyrics wrong, because the mind fills in the words we don't know. I've stood next to people singing the national anthem, and they were singing the wrong words at certain times. You happened to know the name of that particular song and I didn't, but I happened to know the correct spelling of mishear and you didn't. My point is, nobody knows everything, and you also make mistakes. If words are so important to you that you think it's necessary to criticize me publicly for not knowing all the words to a song that's more than fifty years old, then at least take the trouble to spell the words in your criticism correctly.

[@svenwouters9547]

I needed to explain to my parents I wasn't watching porn but a lecture about math

[@EconAtheist]

I was gonna make a basement-dweller crack, but then rethought my original intent.... so, dammit man, I am proud of you for taking the time to educate yourself. *salute*

[@amascia8327]

Did they believe you? [It's a probability of survival question.]

[@nicosmind3]

Arent all math/s lectures essentially porn for intellectuals?

[@stumbling]

Just keep a porn tab open so you can switch to it if they walk in.

[@Peter_1986]

@@nicosmind3 Only if the math teachers are actually interesting and engaging. One good example of a teacher like that is Professor Leonard, he is a truly amazing teacher.

[@SreenikethanI]

my right ear enjoyed this lecture

[@DanDart]

Is that the real Matt? Talking all imperial? I'll have to take that as evidence of extraterrestrial interference.

[@maxmyzer9172]

hmm

[@DanDart]

Why, you traditionalist prescriptivist!

[@achtsekundenfurz7876]

> evidence of extraterrestrial interference. Well, in a way, it _is_ proof of something from a galaxy far far away. It's the proof that . . . (ominous_music.mp3) *THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK*

[@vkillion]

In the "Another One Bites the Dust" bit, I heard "Start the flood, Moana".

[@bilbobaggins4934]

This birthday thing happened at my robotics competition, and it was my birthday and the birthday of the human player on the other team (during our match). And the announcer said WOW, we have about 1000 people here, I'm surprised there isn't another person with a birthday here, and you could see all the people in the crowd realize how not cool that was

[@MyHouseOnTheMoon]

Matt, I love your talks! Keep doing them, and keep putting them up!

[@IwasFRAMEDiTELLyou]

Unlikely things happen all day every day, we just only notice if it's unusual enough to draw our attention. Excellent lecture

[@lolatomroflsinnlos]

18:45 Holy hell that sound startled me

[@bmerigan]

Me too. I didn't know where it was coming from

[@Crazyflowereater]

Marvelous! I love listening to Matt.

[@error.418]

A better answer to the question about the Wingdings related to the 9/11 tragedy is: Q33NY, a well placed hoax in September 2001, as reported, wasn't the flight number of one of the terrorist planes. It was AA 077, AA 011, UA 093 and UA 175.

[@polygondwanaland8390]

Anonymous User the more you know

[@error.418]

@@dejuren1367 Heh, I mean it would be super ambitious to also have it be something that isn't a flight number for any flight whatsoever, either.

[@AliTahreiSh]

I wish more people would watch this video. It's very eye opening.

[@StefanH]

This was way more entertaining than expected!

[@Lortagreb]

My right ear really enjoyed this video

[@seanonel]

I love observing the differences between nerds across cultures!

[@Leander_]

Solid talk from Matt, he's a great public science communicator.

[@raykent3211]

Great lecture, Matt. Funny, and important stuff about our predisposition towards pattern.

[@nicholasogburn7746]

^^what this guy said.

[@robzwolf]

Loved this!

[@malum4.440]

I just fell in love with this man !!!!

[@ricardopestana4081]

Delphi Böhme He has a Channel on KZbin. StandUpMaths... I watch his videos whenever I'm feeling bored

[@felixmerz6229]

Amazing talk. I wondered how it would be to see Matt of nine years ago, and he was already brilliant back then.

[@anjobanjo1221]

Oh! Happy Birthday, Matt Parker!🎉

[@Staymare]

I tried coding a way to solve Matt's challenge with the kings and queens, and I had more trouble figuring out how to shuffle the deck than I did the probabilities that followed!

[@rmsgrey]

A standard approach to shuffling a deck of cards with a computer is to take the structure containing the cards, and go through it in order, picking any card from that position or later to swap into that position at each step. In other words, you pick a random card to be the first card, then a random card from the remaining to be the second card, and so on.

[@stan.rarick8556]

Hand shuffling is not truly random - many pairs stay together, which increases the odds of finding pairs. (Sorry I don't have a referenced for that)

[@rmsgrey]

@@stan.rarick8556 It depends (a lot!) on what state the deck was in beforehand - which in turn depends on what it was last used for - different card games tend to sort cards in different ways. Or you can pick any other pair of values, and you still have a decent chance of finding them adjacent.

[@stan.rarick8556]

@@rmsgrey Yes, the initial state is influenced by the previous game(s) played - you play a lot of solitaire and realize the shuffles still leave a lot of sequences intact, but I disagree that the game influences how effective the sorting method is....

[@rmsgrey]

@@stan.rarick8556 Some games sort strongly into specific sequences - for example, many solitaire variants sort cards into descending order during play, then sort by suit in ascending order within each suit to win. Others - Clock, for example, sort in other patterns - and some are much more weakly patterned - for example, Pyramid, where specific values get paired up, but there's little other correlation. If you play a hand of Bridge (or some other Whist-like game), the deck afterwards will look very different from one that was used to play Fan Tan/Sevens, with the former being much less strongly correlated than the latter, as well as the two producing different types of sequence. An old trick among solitaire fans, in lieu of performing more effective shuffles, is to use cursory shuffling, but switch between a number of different games which have different sorting effects, and care about different aspects of the cards.

[@daniellebarker7205]

I remember watching this some time ago, but could not recall what the song was going to say backwards, but as soon as it was played, I heard it. So weird. The pattern is just permanently in my brain now even though I had consciously forgotten.

[@nathanvanthof866]

For the king and queen question, I consistently get 79%. (it's in python) from random import randint def check(lst1,lst2): for i in lst1: for j in lst2: if -2

[@molybd3num823]

5 years ago, when print still didnt need parentheses

[@turun_ambartanen]

This simulation is flawed. You should take a list and shuffle it, not insert cards and just do x+=1 if you accidentally hit an already existing card. This +1 increases the chance for two cards to end up next to each other (at least by my intuition) I simulated every possible combination of positions and the results are: of 52677281340 possible orderings the deck of cards can be in, 25616014800 (48.628%) contain a King directly adjacent to a queen, 25232642982 (47.900%) with one card in between and 13908281274 (26.403%; the complement to 73.597%) contain neither of these two combinations. You can condense the problem down to integer math, so it really isn't too much work for the computer to simulate it all. KZbin sometimes deletes comments with links in them without any reason, so if you want to check my code you'll have to check out Github > Turun > King-and-Queen-Collisions

[@TymberJ]

@@turun_ambartanen Perfect, there's no need to do a monte carlo when your intent is to represent every possible ordering as equally likely, and the finite number of orderings is that (relatively) small -- you wouldn't simulate random rolls to work out you have a 1/6 chance of rolling a 7 on two dice, and for modern computing equipment 52 card deck isn't that much worse.

[@ignaciojimenez4786]

I saved this video because it appeared so many times on recommended it must be a sign from the universe

[@bobsquaredme]

Back when Matt still had hair. ... well, some hair anyway. ;)

[@ishashka]

Parker hair

[@amethystliime]

@ is hairy

[@DeannaEarley]

Retro Matt,

[@alexanderkrizel6187]

Absolutely amazing. One of the best lectures I have heard in a LONG time.

[@wittycommentator]

I remember my high school statistics teacher doing the birthday problem thing with our class, and it was kind of screwed up by the twin brother and sister that were sitting next to each other.

[@natashaparrott8593]

Happy Birthday for yesterday! I think that you are now 35. Congratz!

[@bbgun061]

He should have given both halves of the audience a different suggestion for the backward lyrics.

[@andymcl92]

Ooh, good idea. However, finding a bit where you can come up with two totally different sentences that both sound a bit like the original could be kinda tricky (if you want more than just yanny/laurel or green needle/brain freeze).

[@rzeka]

andymcl92 Scaretheater did it 4 times in this video, skip to 4:20 kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGGQmnl9n5l_hKc its pretty funny

[@vapocalypse]

Satan is on top, now we're under -- my reversed version for Another one bites the dust.

[@RAMZIAARON]

! read your mind cuz ! thought the exact same thing. It only took about three years but I think next time it will only take about two years.

[@magichands135]

@@vapocalypse When he joked about Freddy being gay, I was convinced the other half would be given the line "suck the top, I wanna"

[@daddy3118]

I've noticed the frequency of cards being followed by adjacent cards when playing solitaire.

[@holdmybeer]

one of my favorite mathematicians.

[@raisukhwani]

Matt you make me want to leave this and go back to study Maths again!! Thank you!

[@MysterX79]

That 1st guy said April 21st ... what a coincidence hehe. My Birthday.

[@Pigeon0fDoom]

My birthday was also mentioned. But as proven by matt, it's nothing special, it will happen.

[@BGhoshPikaPikachu]

The first slide of the weird triangles for the golden spiral

[@brianwakem7258]

I ran a simulation of the K next to Q or at most 1 away and for 10 million randomly shuffled decks I got 48.6% and 73.6% to 1 decimal place.

[@alansmithee419]

45:00 A similar effect arises in turning songs (with lyrics) into midi files. If you're not familiar with the lyrics of a song you'll just hear a torrent of notes, but if you know the lyrics you can pick them out easily.

[@epeleg]

So here I am watching this video when it gets to the birthdays paradox, and I am listening to the people calling out their birth dates, and look and behold, the third one called upon (not counting Matt, he has index 0) has my own birth date, and I say to myself, that's cool, what are the odds, I will have to show this video to my son... and it continues and the first person to have already heard his own birthdays is.... again the 17th of July - how cool is that, but of 218,026 views (so far) almost 600 people should have this very same birthday as myself and those two people in the video - How comes nobody commented on this (true, i did not read all 418 comments posted, but i did read all those that had more then 2 likes... - I would have expected this type of comment to rise to the top very fast...)

[@MrJSenf]

coincidentally im watching on the 26th of december - so happy birthday matt parker

[@km10is]

his birthday is December 22nd though

[@fisrtnamelastname3083]

I sometimes put on random lectures to fall asleep and got jumpscared by the random INCREDIBLY LOUD song

[@Quintinohthree]

For the birthday paradox I already knew the sort of range in which the 50% number should be, but not the exact number, yet guessed exactly right. I guess that's nothing to be too excited about because it's just a random coincidence in the first place and the likelyhood I'd have chosen it pretty high too given that I knew a range to guess within.

[@sk8rdman]

In an effort to help bring your correct guess into perspective, I also knew about the birthday problem and knew the sort of range where the 50% number should be, but did not guess the exact number. I guessed 21.

[@colleenforrest7936]

Joseph Wilson so then... picking prime numbers for the lottery... not as good of an idea as it sounds...

[@pavedieni]

For the birthday paradox - people usually think the number should be higher because when proposed with the question, they are not thinking “any person with anyone else in the room”. They are thinking “ME with anyone else in the room”. Now this is a completely different proposition with threshold quite a bit higher than 23 people.

[@bodozeidler9118]

Excellent for the Young and old Generation,

[@MrSonny6155]

Matt studied in UWA? Wow, I never would have thought! Although that probably explains part of his Australian-British accent.

[@DJSockmonkeyMusic]

He just sounds like a west Aussie nerd to me. Half of my friends have that accent. The other half barely move their lips. Edit I live in the south west of WA, and I worked at UWA, my first job after graduating from Murdoch.

[@nicko-dev]

Hah, the date at the end of the video is my birthday! Fits the theme of the presentation pretty well. :)

[@ninijura]

In the bit where he played another one bites the dust backwards, I was primed enough by the Lucifer example to hear: “Satan smokes marijuana” after a few repeats before Matt put the other text up.

[@Jiglias]

same

[@reversefulfillment9189]

Pretty sure I've seen Matt Parker on another Math channel I've subscribed to. Great guy.

[@conoroneill8067]

Huh. Something really interesting about the backwards portion section of the video. I watched this video... I don't know exactly when, but I'd guess it was about 2 years ago, and when the Freddie Mercury song came on, I, like everyone, didn't hear the supposed backwards message until I heard the suggestion. However, when I came back, despite the fact I remembered very little about the talk, I still heard the Freddie Mercury backwards message clearly. Even though I'd consciously forgotten the exact example used, it must have stuck in my subconscious so I still heard the message or something. ...Although, given the nature of this talk, maybe I shouldn't make preconceived judgements about what may have caused the change in my reaction.

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

there's another comment saying the same thing. the subconscious is definitely powerful and under-understood. (word of the day)

[@theoractliffe4878]

I didn’t share a birthday with anyone in the crowd but it turns out the talk happened on my birthday!

[@espositogregory]

Video descriptions are underrated.

[@dinofrog926]

I am home alone at midnight and the backwards songs have spooked me

[@gk6993]

This was fascinating

[@abrahamholleran4162]

My right ear enjoyed this.

[@spambot7110]

i like how he started his lecture by just power tripping on random students who weren't distracting anyone. amazing teaching skills there

[@keithklassen5320]

He got people laughing, and he got their attention. You are correct, very good teaching skills.

[@shortcat]

thumbs up if you are watching this on dvd

[@VictorPanainte]

One of the best content

[@Richard_is_cool]

Matt(h) is the king!

[@soupisfornoobs4081]

(hs)*

[@petehiggins33]

I bought a lawnmower from Amazon and for months afterwards they "Recommended For Me" yes you guessed it, more lawnmowers. Perhaps there are lots of people who collect lawnmowers.

[@supawooky]

Matt Stone and Trey Parker merged their bodies and names and are now using their humour to lecture about math.

[@blechtic]

Oh no. I'm afraid to find out what Trey Stone might be doing.

[@tempestive1]

​@@blechticbestest necro

[@toughnerd]

I hope group theory guy and math party girl are still doing okay.

[@AdamRood]

You have a good birthday Matt.

[@gyinagal]

Matt, that is Smee from Peter Pan, not a dwarf. Smh

[@SPACKlick]

Noting this here for future reference. With the deck of Cards and kings/queens distance from eachother. I worked it out by simulating. First I looked at the deck of 44 with no kings or queens, we don't care about them. Then we put in the kings, suit doesn't matter but we can just look by order in the deck. first king can go anywhere 1 to 45, second king can go from 1 higher than the first king to 46, then 1 higher than k2 to 47, then 1 higher than k3 to 48. Next we put the queens in, first can go 1 to 49 and if it's lower than any of the kings, they raise by 1. Then the second, one higher than the first to 50 and raise kings again, Q3 from Q2+1 to 51 and raise kings. Q4 from Q3+1 to 52 and raise kings. Then there are 16 gaps |K1-Q1|, |K1-Q2|, |K1-Q3|, |K1-Q4|, |K2-Q1|, |K2-Q2|, |K2-Q3|, |K2-Q4|, |K3-Q1|, |K3-Q2|, |K3-Q3|, |K3-Q4|, |K4-Q1|, |K4-Q2|, |K4-Q3|, |K4-Q4|. And we're only interested in the smallest gap. I ran all of those 52,677,670,500 combinations. Adjacent would be a difference of 1, 1 apart = 2 etc. Gap|Percent|Percent

[@pedroteran5885]

The lowest king does not occupy all positions with equal probability.

[@SPACKlick]

@@pedroteran5885 dammit, you're right

[@rmsgrey]

Anecdotally, when people do the birthday trick by getting people to call out their birthdays, the average number to get the first match is nearer 40 than 23 - people lie about their birthday to push the number higher (which can be done fairly safely by picking three dates originally, and keeping track of whether any of them have been called out yet).

[@HyperQbeMusic]

There is actually a type of people who usually use as few data as possible to spot patterns in it. I call them "pixel hunters" because they search through pictures taken of the Moon, of Mars or of any other body in our solar system in order to spot certain "patterns"... patterns that would "prove" the existence of artificial alien structures (or "buildings") on those bodies. Their method is very simple: Just zoom into any given picture until you start seing rectangular shapes. And as you might guess from the name I gave them, those shapes are more than often simply caused by the edges of pixels! Very important in this process is to reduce the surrounding data as much as possible (choose the visible section of the picture as small as possible), until no one can tell whether the rock they're obviously looking at has the size of a baseball or that of a house (or if it's even a whole hill)...

[@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681]

oh yes, there was that bizarre yt channel of a guy doing this, thinking he saw massiv amounts of small ppl and was absolutly convinced planets are balls made up of quadbillion small ppl while in reality it was just jpeg artifacts. he was in that corner of yt where you find flatearthers, alienscons and frequency healing

[@HyperQbeMusic]

@@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681 *ROFLMAO* "Small people"… seriously!? 😅

[@Huntracony]

KZbin, I literally watched this video on your recommendation just a few hours ago. Stop suggesting it again (for a while).

[@EggBastion]

snoop about the links, there should be a 'not interested' hidden around there somewhere. Maybe in a button that only shows when you hover over it? It'll only work about as good as you'd think and not well as you'd hope. But it's better than nothing and on mobile I think you can block whole channels but only from certain 'screens' If that fails, there's a youtube addon for desktop chrome that blocks channels and spoilers.

[@Huntracony]

@@EggBastion Thanks. I use it frequently (on desktop you can block channels by clicking on "tell us why" after you told them you're not interested, which works quite well) but I won't tell it that I'm not interested in a Matt Parker video because I don't want it to stop recommending them because, well, I am interested.

[@KuraIthys]

'It sucks to have no-one!' Oh Freddy... XD You really do hear stuff that isn't there sometimes huh.

[@amyshaw893]

I really hope maths party girl met group theory guy and had a nice time =)

[@CosminTruta]

"Data mining is a good thing, but it can be used for evil." (1:01:20) Greetings from 2018. Cambridge Analytica, anyone?

[@MarcCastellsBallesta]

This quote should be pinned.

[@mor4y]

Cambridge Analytica didn't do anything evil though, they just did what the other side didn't bother to do 🤷‍♂️