why does the distribution of peas in a pan of swirling water restore itself even as I spooned them out in batches (I.e. where I spooned peas out the area in water did not stay empty).
In: 4
Statistics!
Let’s look at the most extreme example, where one area is *full* of peas and the other area has none.
A pea may wander into the empty area from the full area, but there is no chance of a pea wandering from the empty area to the full area (since there are none there).
The same logic applies if only one pea is in the empty space. The odds of that one pea wandering into the more full side are pretty small compared to the odds of any of those peas wandering to the empty side, because there’s more of them.
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