Who has not at some time given up on losing a calcetn after putting in a washing machine? Surely everyone. In fact, no It is something unusual, but rather the opposite. Almost certainly, it is one of the items of clothing that more headaches when doing laundry.
From Samsung conducted a study in 2017 to quantify the number of socks a person can wear lose on average per year: 15, in total. Throughout a lifetime, a whopping 1,264. A fact that did not leave anyone indifferent.
Follows a probabilistic pattern
Now, why socks disappear in the washing machine remained a mystery.. Until this 2024. British physicist Robert Matthews has mentioned the Murphy’s Law to explain this phenomenon. That is, he has confirmed that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
In his opinion, the disappearance of the socks follows a patrn probabilistic The random loss of these clothes always more likely to create the maximum possible number of odd socks, has stated in a published article in the magazine Scientific American.
Justificacin
Or what is the same: when a sock is lost, its partner becomes loose and is less likely to be worn. Therefore, this situation increases the probability that another sock with a pair will disappear in the next wash. A more than reasonable justification.
It’s more, His argument bears certain similarities with that conveyed by Victor Niederhoffer. in a long and detailed article published in the Daily Speculation newspaper and that has generated some debate on social networks.
A new experiment
If you have 20 socks, specifically 10 different pairs, the following happens after losing a first item of clothing: the possibility that the second undo another pair are 18 out of 19compared to one against 19 whatever un calcetn of the same pair, the expert has clarified.
Niederhoffer, like Matthews, treats the subject as a matter of probability. She has even dared to launch an experiment. Yes, you have talked about stopping buy socks for a while and then check to see if there are more mismatched ones than paired ones. you will try it?.
Follow the Diario AS channel on WhatsAppwhere you will find all the sport in a single space: the current news of the day, the agenda with the latest news of the most important sporting events, the most outstanding images, the opinion of the best AS brands, reports, videos, and some humor from time to time.
