The maths that tells us when a systematic discovery is actual – or now not

Terry Pratchett was once fond of claiming that million-to-one probabilities crop up 9 instances out of ten. On the face of it, this sentence is mathematically absurd, however within the myth international of Pratchett’s Discworld books, powered by way of the magic of narratives, it makes highest sense. Of path heroes are all the time going to stand fantastic odds, and naturally they’re nearly all the time going to triumph over them, as a result of that’s what heroes do.