India, July 17 -- Insurance, agriculture, weather modelling, vaccines. even recipes, all depend on elements of the law of probability.

How likely is toast to burn at a certain point? That shapes how a toaster works.

How likely is someone to buy a toaster painted puke green? That shapes how a toaster looks.

How likely is someone to need, buy, outlive, revisit, reorder.

Probability helps assessors determine insurance premiums, or what percentage of a supply chain's goods will be stolen, lost or damaged; and how that may change alongside other factors such as seasonal or demographic shifts.

This branch of mathematics is so woven into our world, we barely see it anymore. And yet it is a big part of what keeps systems from collapsing alto...