>>23963647Our discrete mathematics teacher in grade 12 did a set up for the math behind poker (a week long thing with a 20%ish part on the final exam). He brought in foolscap folio, placed neatly in the middle of our desks before any of us got in, shuffled a deck of cards mostly with one hand, put on Oceans 11 real quiet like, and continued shuffling with one hand while walking up and down the rows of desks dropping off pens with the other, and then finally said
>"I want to run a little experiment with you guys, if that's ok. If you're not alright with it, by all means take a free period in the caf or the courtyard or tune me out and watch the movie. I'm going to pick up each of these 52 cards, stare at it, think about it intently, and then lay it down in a pile, one every ten seconds, and you guys are going to write your guesses about what each card is on the foolscap, IN PEN. Number two margins if you want, use whatever shorthand, it's all good. Just write your answers vertically starting from the top left, use two columns because there aren't 52 lines on the sheets, and make sure your sheets are signed somewhere. For wasting your time with these theatrics, I'll make you a deal: If anyone gets more than half of these right, I'll give you a free 100% on this section of the exam - that's a free 5% of your final grade in this class - but somewhere between me collecting your papers, and checking them against the pile of cards, I'm going to explain to you what the odds of anyone getting all of these right are, and why - pay attention because that part will be on the final exam, and the chances of even one of you getting a freebie on it are slim to nil. Let's begin shall we?"It was a lot more series probability than it was test for pscyhic ability.
