The Math of Recounting
The silly story about Trump disputing the election results I think presents a fun math problem.
A single person counting 10 two colored balls is occasionally off by 1.
If she is of average intelligence and careful, and double checks her work, ~99.9% of the time she is off by 0.
If her work is then double checked by 1 other person, ~99.99% of the time they are off by 0.
If you have 100 balls, and divide them amongst 10 people to count, and then have 1 “manager” count the 10 sub counts, the same math applies. So now ~99.9% of the time the average manager is off by <10. If someone double checks her work, ~99.99% of the time they are off by 0.
And so it goes…
Math speaks truth. If I tell someone our state counted 10,000,000 balls, and they tell me I’m off by 10,000, they are really saying two things:
- The average citizen in my state doesn’t double check their work even a single time.
- The average citizen in my state is dumb as bricks.
When life hands you lemons, do math!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15qfLXCgT2RHrB5FAO4X7m-9jrXD5HhwLz9q9R_q6hdY/edit?usp=sharing
