Paul Serotsky: Probability or improbability, that is the question

Splitting firewood can be challenging, especially for a first timer. Paul Serotsky recalls an early experience which left him calculating the odds of winning Lotto. Photo / 123RF

CLASSIC NOTES

I solemnly swear that what follows is true. When we settled in New Zealand, 12 years ago, we forsook the luxury of central heating for an open fire. This wasn't by choice – it came with the house. Willy-nilly, I had to learn the art of chopping logs. It turned out to be less easy than falling off one. I was an abysmal student.

I tried – oh, how I tried – but to call me hopeless would be a compliment. Let me cut to the chase, and describe merely the nadir of my log-chopping career, which coincidentally provided a minor but golden opportunity to speculate on the Law of Probability (or, in this case, "Improbability").

Picture the scene: round the rear of the house, before me on a small patch of flagstones, stood the chopping-block, atop of which was proudly poised a fairly regular, medium-sized log (getting to this point I could manage quite well).

Golfer-fashion, I braced my feet apart and, leaning slightly forward, extended the axe. A bit of shuffling brought the axe-head over the intended point of impact (allowing a bit for the "pull" of the down-swing).

My eyes glued furiously on the target, my mind growled repeatedly, "There – there, that's where you strike!" Slowly, I raised the glinting axe. I brought it down again, gently, just to make sure. To make absolutely sure, I repeated the cycle. Twice. Finally, feeling I'd got myself set, I raised the axe on high, and accelerated it along its downward sweep.

Fully five inches off-target, it just clipped the right-hand side of the log, slicing off a thick-ish stick of kindling. According to Newton, this should have flown away to the side. It didn't. Instead, spinning rapidly end over end, it arced directly towards me.

The odds were that it would hit me "flattish". It didn't. It hit me point first. The odds were it would hit a soft, or at least a moderately padded bit of me. It didn't. It hit the point of my right shin-bone, dead centre.

So, I hopped around for a bit, rubbing the painful point furiously, unleashing a string of lurid expletives. Eventually, I calmed down, gingerly lifted my trouser leg and inspected the damage. There was a lurid blotch of frayed skin, which still felt quite tender.

And I still had a log to chop. Golfer-fashion, I braced my feet apart and . . . now, ask yourselves, just what are the chances that, in the next minute or so, the same sequence of events should occur? Not approximately, but exactly.

Oh, all right: apart, that is, from two completely trivial details: (1) the string of expletives was marginally more colourful (my first lot having left little elbow-room for chromatic embellishments), and (2) the lurid blotch was now a bleeding hole. No, I'm not swearing, though, given the circumstances, I believe that I had every right to.

I haven't done any detailed sums, but a conservative estimate suggests that the odds I beat could have won me not one lotto jackpot, but a good dozen.

Why did I squander them on a (expletive deleted) log? Needless to say, not long after, we drastically cut the odds of a recurrence – by switching to a heat pump.