Squall Leonhart wrote: » If you shuffle a deck of cards, and deal out all 52 cards, it is virtually a 100% certainty that that combination of cards has never been dealt out ever before. The odds of the same permutation repeating are 1 in 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766, 975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000. To give you an idea of how many that is, here is how long it would take to go through every possible permutation of cards. If every star in our galaxy had a trillion planets, each with a trillion people living on them, and each of these people has a trillion packs of cards and somehow they manage to make unique shuffles 1,000 times per second, and they'd been doing that since the Big Bang, they'd only just now be starting to repeat shuffles.
FanadMan wrote: » From QI?
Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: » Yes indeed. They did it a few years back and Dave repeated it recently. So I suppose that falls into the 'Yes, we did know that' category.
Kintarō Hattori wrote: » Some of us perhaps.... definitely not all of us. No reason for it but I've never seen an episode of QI.
stimpson wrote: » And that is still 15,170,116,681,772,643,725,871,105,728,555 times smaller than the deck of cards combinations!
eviltimeban wrote: » So how likely am I to win the lotto on Wednesday?
Doyler92 wrote: » Did your career teach you this?
Squall Leonhart wrote: » Sure was, thought it was interesting, so shared it
FanadMan wrote: » I saw it on QI years ago and it was really....well, interesting It's one of the best programmes on TV. Not as good with Sandi Toksvig but still never miss it.
Squall Leonhart wrote: » If you shuffle a deck of cards, and deal out all 52 cards, it is virtually a 100% certainty that that combination of cards has never been dealt out ever before. The odds of the same permutation repeating are 1 in 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766, 975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000. .
Cartouche wrote: » 50% of all United States territory lies below the ocean
Squall Leonhart wrote: » Sure was, thought it was interesting, so shared it No, it certainly didn't. But to be fair, most of the information on this thread quoted by people hasn't been learned at their jobs either.
Red Kev wrote: » The country Senegal got it's name allegedly from when the first European explorers arrived off the coast. They pointed at the land and asked a local fisherman "What's that called?". "Su-Nu-Gaal" was the answer, and so it became Senegal. Thing is, the Europeans didn't speak Wolof (local language) and the locals wouldn't have spoken their language either. The mystery is cleared up when you realise that "Su-Nu-Gaal" in Wolof means "That's our canoe".
bnt wrote: » I'm currently reading The QI Book of General Ignorance, which I would encourage if you're enjoying this thread. It's full of the kinds of things you thought were new, but are probably wrong about. It says, for example, that there are more pet tigers in the USA (~ 12,000) than wild in all their natural habitats (est. 5,100-7,500).
ahlookit wrote: » Another for QI fans, the show's researchers have their own podcast called "No such thing as a fish". I think its very entertaining, well worth a listen, and full of useless facts!
Flippyfloppy wrote: » Roma gypsies are not Romanian
Bandana boy wrote: » 4 researchers from QI (might be the same people) have a TV show called "no such thing as the news " on BBC 2 which is quite humorous .
sbsquarepants wrote: » That's a great show. Haven't seen it in a while though, is it still on?