It’s a small world. I know that you have heard that phrase, and probably have said it on several occasions. The world is certainly not small, several billion people occupy it. This brings about what could be called “likely unlikely events”.

Why do we say that something so big is small? Completely opposite words that should not be placed together in a sentence. Our intention is to state this idea as evidence for why something occurred that we cannot explain.

How do I explain getting on an airplane after a week of vacation and sitting in the same row with someone from my work?

How else do I explain getting my seat bumped to first class, then sitting next to the Aunt of one of my current students?

How else do I explain walking onto a flight for which I purchased a seat only a week earlier and knowing the first person I see? The flight attendant is a former student, who was covering a shift for another flight attendant. Otherwise she would not have been there.

Is the world really that small? You may know that I am a math guy, so I can assure you that the numbers simply do not add up. There are 25,000 flights per day carrying over 3 million passengers. Since I have about 3000 former students and co-workers, that is perhaps a 1 in 1000 chance they are next to me. If we then multiply by the number of days that I am available to travel, another factor of 20 can be added fly on a plane on the exact same day as I do.

Since, this was supposed to be about word play, I will pause and say that I put these odds at no less than 1 in million. So, we call these events, likely unlikely events, because they happen to all of us, and seemingly often. There we have the evidence that this big world is small.