Everyone is Lucky
October 29, 2009
Fun with Math, from Armen Alchian’s “Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory”:
Suppose two million Parisians were paired off and set to tossing coins in a game of matching. Each pair plays until the winner on the first toss is again brought to equality with the other player. Assuming one toss per second for each eight-hour day, at the end of ten years there would still be, on the average, about a hundred-odd pairs; and if the players assign the game to their heirs, a dozen or so will still be playing at the end of a thousand years!
October 29, 2009 at 11:13 am
Why Parisians? Also, there would probably be many more, since coins aren’t perfectly fair.
October 29, 2009 at 11:21 am
Because Parisians have low value in alternative uses?
Today, of course, by law, they would only be allowed to toss coins for seven hours a day, not eight. But this was before the 35-hour workweek (and the plethora of jobs that were thereby created!) was instituted in France.