My oldest son is in high school and totally into math. The other day he was doing his homework, graphing functions and calculating the outliers of a group of numbers, when my friend from our lottery group called me and asked me what Powerball numbers he would probably pick this week. My son overheard the conversation and after I hung up he gave me a teenage “oh boy” look if you know what I mean. He then asked me if I really believe that picking numbers at random could win. He said to use some statistics to define the outliers and go with them. I just looked at him and said “that’s none of your business Mr. Smart”. Later that night I did some research on the web and couldn’t believe what I found.
When it comes to statistics, the name of Carl Friedrich Gauss, a German mathematician from the 1800s, has contributed significantly to the development in the fields of number theory and statistics. Carl Gauss is one of the most influential mathematicians in history.
He invented Gauss’s theory. Most people also know this as the bell curve. The mathematical function of his theory of probability defies common thought. Normally, us normal people would choose the most drawn numbers since they appear more often, or the least drawn numbers thinking that since they haven’t appeared in a long time, I’ll pick them in case they finally do. I mean, even a broken watch tells the correct time twice a day.
What mr. Gauss’s theory states that all numbers must first line up on a bell curve type graph. To create a bell curve, we need to align our historical winning numbers. What this research showed was that if you took all the winning numbers from the last 2 years, you would get a curve where 64 is the most drawn number and 1 and 45 are the least.
These guys on Powerball strategies say that in the example above, the number 64 is the most picked, while on the edges, the number 1 and 45 are the least picked. The point is that now we need to get numbers not from the top or the sides, but we need to superimpose a rectangular box over the middle where most of the combinations are achieved. You see, they claim that the odds of being either 64 and 1 or 45 are so small that it makes sense that numbers that appear quite frequently are more likely to be hit.
I’ll be looking into this and other articles further, I think there may be something to this. I know one doesn’t really get rich by sheer luck, but maybe this logic eliminates “Luck” and we’ll get pure victory!