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Is every card shuffle unique?

Samstag, 5. September 2026 · 9 min

MP3

Shownotes

Can it really be true that every shuffle of a deck of cards is unique? Mathematician and stand-up comedian Matt Parker claims that every time you do a shuffle, the cards have never been in that order before.

But how can he be so confident? Matt came into the studio armed with a deck of cards and some very big calculations to back up his big assertion, and introduced us to the mind-splitting mathematical world of factorials and combinatorics.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Nathan Gower
Series producer: Tom Colls
Sound engineer: James Beard
Programme co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Editor: Richard Vadon

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