Quick update: after running a monte carlo simulation - rolling 1,000,000 sets of 40 dice rolls each, iterating through the games looking at each "window" of 11 rolls and seeing if 7 were doubles, then counting how many games that happened in - the answer appears to be about 0.84%, give or take. So that's one out of every 119 games, and at the current rate of backgammon games that's one every 1h45 minutes or so.
It's not that ridiculous.
Oh, and incidentally, for the original (false) claim of 8 out of 9 rolls? The rate there would be once every 8800 games or so. Quite a bit rarer, but still not ridiculous.
I'll leave you with this parting thought from Richard Feynman:
It's not that ridiculous.
Oh, and incidentally, for the original (false) claim of 8 out of 9 rolls? The rate there would be once every 8800 games or so. Quite a bit rarer, but still not ridiculous.
I'll leave you with this parting thought from Richard Feynman:
Richard Feynman wrote: You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!