Law of truly large numbers

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The law of truly large numbers is the observation in statistics that any highly unlikely result (i.e., an event with constantly low but non-zero probability across samples) is likely to occur, given a large enough number of independent samples. It is not a mathematical law, but a colloquialism. The law has been used to rebut pseudo-scientific claims. The observation is attributed to statisticians Persi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller. Skeptic and magician Penn Jillette similarly said that "million-to-one odds happen eight times a day" among the roughly 8 million inhabitants of New York City. In another illustrative class of cases—which also involve combinatorics—lottery drawing numbers have been duplicated in close or even immediate succession.

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