How is it possible that every single person has a completely unique and different fingerprint, how are we not running out of unique motifs.
In: Biology
The amount of possible permutations or combinations of a thing can be really, really, really high, with only a small number of actual “things” that can be permuted. The classic example is a deck of cards. There are only 52 cards, but the number of different combinations you can have is so high, that any time you truly randomly shuffle a deck of cards, then it is almost mathematically impossible that any deck of cards, anywhere, EVER has ever been in that order before, or will be again, in the entire past and future history of the universe.
The formula for that is 52!, if you’re interested reading more (the exclamation mark is part of it).
Now consider something like a fingerprint. Its not connected to your DNA at all, it grows and self-assembles randomly in the womb. Even identical twins will have unique fingerprints. And if you think about how many intricate little lines and swirls and spirals and patterns there are that make up a fingerprint, it seems like it’s probably a LOT more than 52, hey?
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