You may have heard of the "infinite monkey theorem". It states: if you take a monkey, give it a typewriter and an infinite amount of time, sooner or later it will type out the complete text of Hamlet.[1]
It's said that this theorem emerged during 19th-century debates about evolution. Proponents of evolution supposedly argued that human descent from apes, like other low-probability events, is possible – you just need to allow enough time.
I began my talk about low-probability events with this example at an informal seminar for graduate students at UCLA. I'll share this talk with you as well. My story will have several parts; the first part is dedicated to Buridan's principle.