Here’s my conversation with Joseph Mazur, Professor Emeritus at Marlboro College in Vermont, about his book, “Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence.” I started by asking him what the difference is between a fluke and a coincidence, and then we got into several of the stories in his collection, including:
- Why it’s not so remarkable that a woman has won the lottery four times;
- How a woman bought a used book in Paris that was hers as a child in Colorado;
- Why gamblers need to forget the concept of “playing with the house’s money;”
- Those dreams you remember because they coincide with something in your real life.
He also explained why randomness is not so random, the law of truly large numbers, and how many people now ask him “what are the odds?” Listen to our conversation here.