134 Are the Androids Dreaming Yet? A Simple Poem Rain There are holes in the sky Where the rain gets in But they’re ever so small That’s why the rain is thin. Spike Milligan — a = ; a — eh), —_— —E_ rl hi Spike Milligan Coming upon a poem by chance can be likened to the probability of dealing a perfect bridge hand. Shuffle the deck thoroughly and then deal four hands. What is the probability every player will have the ace through king in a single suit? It’s about 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 hands. Because lots of people play a lot of bridge around the world, this outcome has been reported quite a few times. The possibility appears within the bounds of human experience. Fifty-two playing cards seems close to the 80 characters that make up this poem and 13 choices of cards is about the same as the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. Wouldn't we expect poems of this complexity to crop up almost as often? NO. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015824