ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Law of squares

Okay, imagine you are playing a game and you have a lucky number, let's say it's number 2. Every time you roll a dice, you hope it lands on 2 because that's your lucky number. But imagine if I told you that your chances of rolling a 2 are not the same as rolling any other number like 1, 3, 4 or 6. That's what the law of squares is all about.

The law of squares is a way of explaining how the probability of an event happening (like rolling a specific number on a dice) changes depending on how many different outcomes are possible. In simpler terms, it means that the more possible outcomes there are, the lower the chance of any one specific outcome happening.

Let's go back to the dice example. When you roll a dice, there are six possible outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. This means your chances of rolling a 2 are only 1 in 6 (or about 17%). But what if you were playing a game with a deck of cards instead? A deck of cards has 52 different cards with four different suits and 13 different values. This means your chances of getting any one specific card are much lower than rolling a 2 on a dice.

So, to sum it up, the law of squares helps us understand that the more possible outcomes there are, the lower the chance of any one specific outcome happening.