Finding something special in a deck of cards | Hey Ray
A deck of cards may not seem special, and a deck really isn't special until you give it a good shuffle. That is where a deck becomes very special!
Mixing up those cards can lead to something really special...an order of cards no one has ever seen before and may never see again! However, by looking at 52 cards, it does not seem like there would be that many combinations to call a particular order "rare" or "special," though.
When you do the math, you can see just how many combinations there could be. The number of combinations is a "52!" or "52 factorial". That is where you take the number of cards and multiply up. We have 52 different cards in a deck, so that would be 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x9.....and you keep going until you hit 52.
You can see how that would cause the number of combos to grow!
According to McGill University in Canada, this number is so large that there are more different combinations in a deck of cards than there are atoms on Earth! Usually, it is easier to manage the number by writing it as 8x10^67. That is 8 followed by 67 zeros, or 8 unvigintillion! A number most of us had never heard of and probably cannot even comprehend. At least I can't!
NASA estimates that there are 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe. NASA says astronomers estimate those galaxies have one septillion stars. A septillion is one followed by 24 zeros. That means there are way more card combinations in a deck of cards than the number of stars in the known universe!
Are you seeing why a shuffled deck of cards is special?
Think of how few people win the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpots. If you bought a ticket, you have a one in 292 million chance of winning the Powerball and a one in 290 million chance of winning the Mega Millions, according to the Pennsylvania Lottery. Those chances are very, very low, but way higher than ever, seeing the order of a well-shuffled deck of cards repeat.
So, whether you are holding 'em or folding 'em, that deck was essentially one of a kind.
