back in 2011 on the day I launched my
first business what looked like a
statistical miracle took place in my
kitchen poaching eggs for breakfast I
cracked open four eggs the first was a
double yolk er something I'd heard of
but never seen before the second also a
double yolk er I called my wife in crack
the third egg open again a double yolk
ER with a sense of anticipation I
cracked open the fourth four double yolk
errs in a row what are the odds against
that happening huge you might think I
decided that such an unusual event
happening was a good omen for the
business that was launching that day but
I also went on to Google to try and find
out what might have caused this a few
days ago amusingly the day my new book
on statistics launched I cracked open
the first egg in a new carton and it was
a double yolk er once again I decided it
was a good almond but this time I knew
that the carton likely contained more
double yolk errs when I looked up the
probability of an egg having two yolks I
learned that one in every thousand eggs
on average is a double yolk er so if the
probability of finding an egg with two
yolks is one in a thousand then the
likelihood of discovering four in a row
can be simply calculated by multiplying
the probabilities together four times
1,000 to the power of four brings us to
one in one trillion a trillion being a
million million if true that would mean
that the event that occurred in my
kitchen back in 2011 was a trillion to
one event but is that true the short
answer is No whenever something that
unlikely happens you have to question if
something else is going on what you have
to consider is the fact that these eggs
are likely to come in clusters
I learned the double yolk eggs almost
always come from young hens that are 20
to 28 weeks old a young chicken laying
its first few eggs can release more than
one egg and form a single shell around
the two
and out pops a rather large egg with two
egg yolks in it the chances of getting a
double yolk from a yuen-han is much
higher than one in a thousand it's about
one in a hundred in addition the eggs in
any carton are very likely to come from
the same farm and the same flock of
birds and chicken farms usually contain
chickens of around the same age simply
because the farmer buys them in bulk on
that basis we can say that well the
chances of finding one double yolk egg
maybe one in a thousand the chance of
finding a second in the same carton is
considerably higher possibly one in a
hundred and the same then goes for the
third and fourth egg so taking all of
that into account we can do the math and
see a thousand times a hundred times a
hundred times a hundred equals 1 billion
so the probability of finding four eggs
in a row in a single box is one in a
billion which is still extremely
unlikely a one-in-a-billion event is
still a big big deal although compared
to one in a trillion chance the
difference is of course huge a trillion
is a thousand times bigger than a
billion and amounts to the difference
between something happening maybe once a
week compared to once every 20 years
so was this event a billion to one event
once again probably not there's another
important factor that we need to
consider the size of the eggs double
yolk eggs are far more likely to be
large yet the eggs the young birds lay
are normally small any large eggs that
are laid at a farm would be picked out
and boxed together simply because eggs
are usually sorted by size this means
that if you find a large double yolk egg
and you know that the other eggs in the
box are from the same young flock then
the chance that the other eggs are also
double yolk kurz becomes a lot more
likely so our first calculation where we
worked out that it was a one in a
trillion event only works if the two
events are independent of each other in
the world of insurance
vomiting the probability of someone
crashing into your car and being
uninsured requires considering whether
these events are independent of each
other it might be that the type of
person who is willing to drive a car
uninsured is also the type of person who
neglects to maintain the safety
equipment on their car and they might
also be the type of person who is more
likely to make foolish decisions while
driving if you find this sort of thing
interesting you might enjoy my new book
which is called statistics for the
trading floor and it looks at how
investors can use statistical analysis
it turns out that for me double yolk
eggs might actually just be lucky as the
business that I launched back in 2011
went on to be quite successful and my
new book was in the top 1% of Amazon
book sales last week but maybe it's just
coincidence don't forget to hit the like
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like this bye
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you
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