Chance

I have always believed that coincidence is a glimpse beneath the tent of reality, a peek backstage, as it were, at the scaffolding that holds up the world.

When I was in college, I made up a poem about chance.

It goes like this:

Fate and chance,

Chance and fate,

Who knows

Whose lives

They await?

It's held up pretty well over the years.

But it turns out that you can lean on reality a bit if you have a feeling for the vagaries of chance and probability.

"Chance," a little 119-page book by Amir D. Aczel, is well worth the $12.60 it'll cost you at amazon.

Chapter 7, "Random Walks and the Gambler's Ruin," explores which of two strategies, "Bold Play" or "Cautious Play," is more likely to let you walk away from the roulette table a big winner.

Answer: "Bold Play," in which you wager everything you have on one roll, as opposed to the "Cautious Play" alternative of betting just a small amount repeatedly.

Besides which, "Bold Play" will result in tons more free time no matter what the outcome, so you can sit quietly and read. But I digress.

And what about that old saw about how if there are X number of people in a room, it's almost a certainty two of them have the same birthday?

The explanation for that one's in Chapter 11, entitled "The Birthday Problem."

Oh, yeah, the numbers: get a group of 20 people together and about half the time two of them will have the same birthday.

Want more certainty?

OK, then: get 31 people together and the chance of two having the same birthday is 95%.

Still not good enough for you?

Get 56 people together and the chance of two having the same birthday is 99%.

Now that's what I'd call a pretty sure thing.

You also won't want to miss Chapter 12, "Coincidences."

It explains why there's about a 1.5% chance that you and the person next to you on any plane flight will know one person in common.

If nothing else, this book will show you precisely how many people you need to go out with before you can be certain you've found the best possible match.

The answer's contained in Chapter 13, entitled "How to Succeed in Love (Find the Best Apartment, or Adopt the Best Puppy)."

All in all, a superb book.

Highest recommendation.

Oh, I almost forgot: how many people do you need to go out with to be sure you've chosen the best candidate for marriage?

Precisely 37% of the field available to you.

Translated into English, that means that if, over a lifetime, you expect to meet 100 possible candidates for a serious relationship, then going out with 37 of them and then choosing the first person thereafter who's better than all the previous ones is the best possible strategy to ensure you don't jump too soon or, even worse, discard what would have been the best person you'll ever meet.

Aczel writes,

So if you are a young woman who expects to meet one hundred attractive bachelors over her dating years, you should let the first thirty-seven of them go, and marry the first one you meet thereafter who is more attractive to you than all thirty-seven young men you have already dated. Now, don't you wish your mother would give you advice like that?

But then, that's why you've got me.