Random the Book

One of the lovely aspects of co-writing a book about the concept of “random” is that people contact you with really interesting stories around this vague subject.

For example, a mutual friend of mine and Matt’s, Dave Floyd, contacted us about this story on the “arseblog”, which you should go and read before continuing. Really, don’t be put off by the name. it’s a blog about Arsenal, a British soccer team ( congratulations to their fans by the way ), and a story about a coincidence.

Trust me.

Also, I don’t want to spoil such a well written piece.

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Welcome back. Firstly, as we all drown in short form hot takes squirted at us by algorithm driven social media, let’s just take a moment to appreciate good writing that’s over 300 characters long.

But more than that, this really illustrated to me my own tension with the subject of randomness. On the one hand the blog’s story is just a coincidence, and it would be weird and suspicious if something like this never happened in our life, or in anyone’s life. Coincidences are infrequent but expected. The maths and concepts are relatively complex but Professor Sarah Hart of Gresham College does a great job of explaining them in the first twenty minutes or so of this video. Do watch it to the end for bonus tips on how to be a fortune-teller.

But on the other hand, I have to be drawn to how powerful these coincidences feel, as the arseblog says: “things like this sort of inexplicable randomness makes me kinda believe there’s something more”. Regardless of scientific or mathematical or logical explanations, and regardless of how well you know those explanations, when thinking about coincidence and randomness, take a moment to appreciate the sheer power of how it feels to have the universe, seemingly, lined up just for you.