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Comment by dullcrisp

10 days ago

The number of ways to shuffle a deck with 70 cards, approximately?

"The number of x" is not "natural".

  • Why? The number of ways to shuffle 5 cards is a relevant thing to talk about, and is a perfectly fine number we use all the time.

    What about 6 cards? 7 cards? At what point does it become "not natural"?

    • Not op, but the number of cards doesn't matter. Only one shuffle can exist at a time, the "number of shuffles" is not a number of natural objects but rather a cardinality of a set. And as we know sets and cardinalities open the gates of hell.

      This doesn't mean it's not a "relevant thing to talk about". It just means that these mathematical constructs while useful don't maintain a direct connection to reality, kind of like complex numbers.

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