> using a weak science (handwriting analysis) and then adding ridiculously high numbers to it (1/2.666E21) is a really bad way to decide on this. Ah, but ridic

> using a weak science (handwriting analysis) and then adding ridiculously high numbers to it (1/2.666E21) is a really bad way to decide on this. Ah, but ridiculously high numbers get such a nice emotional reaction from a jury. I once had a conversation with a guy who fiercely proclaimed that if you shuffle a deck of cards, the resulting ordering is likely to be utterly unique in the history of all shuffled decks ever, because there are <dramatic pause /> 8E67 possibilities!1! Same as the number of atoms in our galazxy! I went on to explain that while in theory this is true, in practice there are a lot of caveats. Since brand new unopened deck of cards are usually all in the same order, and since a perfect cut and a perfect riffle shuffle (left/right/left/right/left etc) will always produce one of two orderings, depending on whether you start with the left or right decks, etc etc, it lowers the odds drastically. And it would be more proper to say that if you sloppily shuffle a deck about 7 times, then the original claim is probably true. But I lost the crowd. They had already had an emotional reaction to the enormous number .