The Birthday Problem

A dark, yet hopeful, musing on the effects of chance, coincidence and choice

The title of Gussoff's book refers to a well-known statistical probability case: what are the odds of two of a random group of people having the same birthday? Surprisingly, those odds are much better than we would "intuitively" guess: with only 70 people, the probability approaches 99.9% -- and only 23 people are required for the odds to be 50%. These odds, while true, seemingly defy logic. This book explores the lives of several characters, and how chance and coincidence cause them to intersect in ways far beyond the "odds" one would intuitively expect.

It is 50 years from now. Humans have devised nanobot technology which can fix almost anything, from male-pattern baldness to cancer. The specter of death, for most people, has receded to distant horizons. But then the unthinkable catastrophe strikes: the nanotechnology goes rogue, resulting in a fast trip to madness and death for most people...

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