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LESSON 2 · The Math of Choices

PAUSE TO THINK

How many ways can a standard deck of 52 cards be shuffled?

About 8 × 10⁶⁷ — far more than the number of atoms making up the Earth

52 factorial equals roughly 8 followed by 67 zeros. Every shuffle you have ever done almost certainly produced an arrangement that never existed before and never will again.

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