Our intuitions often leads us astray. A good reminder: study counterintuitive math and economic results.
Here are 9 of them ๐งต
The Birthday Paradox
In a room of 23 people, there's a >50% chance that 2 people share the same birthday.
This type of probabilistic thinking does *not* come naturally to many people.
The Coastline Paradox
Fractal geometry is also confounding:
The coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined measurement. As the unit of measurement gets smaller (eg. from KMs to cm), the length increases without limit.
Winner's Curse
In an auction, the winning bid will usually exceed the intrinsic worth of an item leading to a significant overpay (and negative net profit for the winner).
Braess's Paradox
Removing an extra road can make everyone's commute time faster.
Why? The existence of a "fast" road leads to congestion because everyone uses it. If you remove the shortcut, traffic flows better.