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120 = Dealing Probability and Healing Gullibility

October 27, 2025 · 1 h 8 min

Show notes

🃏 What are the odds of actually winning Morgan’s very specific, very fun card game?


🤯 Are people more gullible now? And what are the best ways to persuade someone they are wrong?


👻 And, appropriate to the season, there will be some Any Other Boooooooooooooosness


If you have some ingenious suggestions of what Matt can do in lunar gravity, head to www.aproblemsquared.com and submit your idea as a ‘Solution’


Head to our socials to see Matt’s graph plot and stats on the odds of winning the card game, as well as Bec’s beautifully laid out existence proof of the 52 Card Game!


Some further reading on The Gullibility Problem:

Why are people so gullible? https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20160323-why-are-people-so-incredibly-gullible

Research paper on political extremism: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612464058

Nobel Disease: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease


And some tetrahedron-shaped packaging - or TetraPaks, if you will:

TetraPak: https://www.tetrapak.com/solutions/packaging/packages

SunnyBoys: https://australianfoodtimeline.com.au/2016-goodbye-sunnyboy/


See Matt on tour! http://standupmaths.com/shows

And if you want to see Matt in London on Monday 1st December, tickets are here: https://lwtheatres.co.uk/whats-on/matt-parker/

Or if you want to see Bec in Brighton on Monday 1st December, tickets are here: https://www.komedia.co.uk/shows/john-luke-roberts-geoffrey-chaucers-mediaeval-christmas-festivitye/


Here’s how to get involved with Matt’s Moon Pi Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/standupmaths


And here’s how to volunteer for Calculate Pi By Hand with Matt: https://forms.gle/w44THpNJ3jWUPqHy6


If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!

If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps.


Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.

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