In this podcast, two commentators tell the story of a crazy series of events involving two girls named Laura Buxton, a balloon, and their friendship united by "destiny" . They use this story to further discuss the role statistics play in life events, especially probability and randomness. They share all the amazing similarities between the two girls and also ask the girls to share their testimony of the event. Both girls are called Laura Buxton, they are more or less the same age, they look alike, they have the same type of pet and they both live in the same town. Not to mention, Laura #1 let go of a balloon and it came to Laura #2 on the other side of the country, starting this series of events. To analyze the statistical part of this situation, the commentators include a man named Jay Koehler, a probability expert. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Koehler uses an example called the "blade of grass perspective" which essentially uses the probability that a certain blade of grass is the only blade the golf ball would stop after being hit. He explains that there must be a blade of grass that you land on, so it's actually not that "magical" that a certain blade was the right one. According to him, it is narrow-minded to think that there is a low probability that a blade will be hit. In the grand scheme of things, it's very likely. He uses it to combat the "incredible amount of doom" Laura's story experiences. With human inference and elusive evidence, we seem to see things that are similar and highlight those things that only look at confirmatory events. It challenges us to consider not just the possibility of a single event happening to a single subject, but rather the possibility of it happening to the entire sample size. In my personal life, I've only had one crazy situation similar to this, and to this point. I have a friend with a little boy named Layken. I have a cousin with a little girl named Lillian. Both little girls are exactly the same age... just today. Both names start with an L, they both have an older brother the same age, their moms post similar photos of them on social media, and they both dressed up as a Dalmatian for Halloween last year (and their brother as a firefighter). . To make things even crazier, they both showed up at the same fall church party where I was, so it was like déjà vu to see them both there and looking the same. This seemed very unusual to me and with each new similarity it started to get even stranger. My unusual story is very similar to the first Laura story. After the podcast interviewees explained our perception of randomness and probability in more depth, I realized that it's actually not that unusual. I'm at an age where several friends have kids around the same time, the kids and each of their siblings were two years apart, which is a common age difference between siblings, all moms post the same type of photos of their kids and a The Dalmatian and the Fireman are very common Halloween costumes. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Lastly, I live in a small town and chances are both of us attending the same festival is not that uncommon as it was probably the only community event that happened that day. I was so quick to find the similarities that I didn't think about all the odds that things in the big picture were similar. Furthermore, I have.