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  1. For example I can tell you that the probability of rolling a 1 on a single roll of a die is 1/6.

    If you roll the die 6 times, you will probably get zero, one or two 1s. In that sample, you will conclude that either (1) my probability calculation is perfect or (2) it is completely wrong.

    Roll 50 more times. Now the actual number of 1s as a percentage of the total sample is starting to approximate 1/6.

    Roll a thousand more times. A million. A billion. The portion of 1s will more and more closely approximate 1/6 of the total sample size.

    Paradoxically, in absolute (not percentage) terms the deviation of the number of 1s in the sample from the predicted 1/6 will increase.

  2. If there are 50 keys on the typewriter, the probability of the monkey getting Shakespeare correct is raised to the power of the number of characters, letters and spaces, in Shakespeare plus the adjustments of the typewriter needed for capitals and punctuation. On this basis the chance of the monkey typing the word ‘Hamlet’ correctly is one in 15,625,000,000, so to quote the probability of him typing the complete works involves a large number indeed. It may be theoretically possible, but it would probably be a project that would last to the end of the universe. By then monkey’s may have evolved enough to find better use for their time.

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