Clippings

It’s been estimated that, because of the exponential growth of the world’s population, between 10 and 20 percent of all the human beings who have ever lived are alive now. If this is so, does this mean that there isn’t enough statistical evidence to conclusively reject the hypothesis of immortality?

Why is it, incidentally, if all the 3,838,380 ways of choosing six numbers out of forty are equally likely, that a lottery ticket with the numbers 2 13 17 20 29 36 is for most people much preferable to one with the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6? This is, I think, a fairly deep question.