Fate, luck, or coincidence? | Mind-blowing story of Anne Parish
𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘅:
⏲ 0:00 Unbelievable story
⏲ 0:47 Fate, luck, or coincidence?
⏲ 1:20 Research of Professor Mazur
⏲ 2:24 The result of the research
📫𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐅𝐁 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞:
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🎬𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐬:
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📚𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝'𝐬 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬
📕 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘀: 𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱
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📙 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘀: 𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲
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📗 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘀: 𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻
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** The kindle versions are available
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📄𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐭:
Our story begins in America in 1929. Anne Parish and her husband leave for a vacation to Paris. Once there, they visit the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame cathedral, and the bird market. After lunch one day at Deux Magot, Anne wanders off alone for a while and walks into a bookstore. There she sees a copy of her favorite childhood book, "Jack Frost and Other Stories", and buys it on the spot. Later she shows it to her husband and opens it to the first page, which has a note obviously written by a child. It reads: "Anne Parish, 209 North Weber Street, Colorado Springs." Yes, it’s the very same copy that belonged to Anne many years ago.
What are the chances that a book, having started in the United States, would end up in Paris and then be found by its original owner? Could it possibly be just a coincidence? It’d be easy to assume that the probability of such an event happening is almost zero. But one person who wasn’t satisfied with making assumptions was American mathematics professor Joseph Mazur. He researched the incident in detail, both historically and mathematically, and came up with an interesting conclusion.
Mazur’s investigation was helped by the fact that Anne Parish was herself a well-known children’s book writer so he could easily get information about her life and family connections. Among the facts he uncovered:
- Parish's mother was a close friend of Mary Cassat, a famous painter who moved to Paris. So it’s likely that this is how the book ended up across the Atlantic.
- Parish's husband was a wealthy businessman and the couple visited Paris quite frequently.
- Mary Cassat died in 1926, at which point, it seems probable, the book came into the possession of a bookseller.
- Parish came with her husband to Paris in 1929 and, being a writer, naturally tended to visit bookstores there, especially those selling English books. At that time, there were only two bookstores in Paris which sold English books.
- Having seen her favorite childhood book, it would be natural for her to buy it.
According to Mazur’s calculations, the probability of the event happening was 1 in 3,331 – odds that are far from being incredible. In fact, as Mazur points out, the probability of getting 4 aces in poker, 1 in 4,164, is less than Parish's chances of finding her book. What can we learn for this? Simply that when we know all the details surrounding an event, or chain of events, the chances of it happening might turn out to be a lot greater than we what initially assumed.
#probability #mazur #parish
