Editing 628: Psychic

The four panels are actually a setup to the real joke in this comic: the final sentence spoken by a narrator. It reveals that Cueball has simply played a trick on Megan and that anyone can repeat it. The joke is that, theoretically, a person can guess a random number from 1 to 100 once in one hundred tries, or 1% of the time, according to the {{w|law of large numbers}}. By playing this trick enough times on enough friends, the trickster is statistically likely to get a number right eventually. Assuming the person whose number he guesses is not familiar with the trick, it will appear as if the trickster is actually psychic. Should this happen, the trickster can then play the joke out as he wants, hence the "it's totally worth it" at the end.

The four panels are actually a setup to the real joke in this comic: the final sentence spoken by a narrator. It reveals that Cueball has simply played a trick on Megan and that anyone can repeat it. The joke is that, theoretically, a person can guess a random number from 1 to 100 once in one hundred tries, or 1% of the time, according to the {{w|law of large numbers}}. By playing this trick enough times on enough friends, the trickster is statistically likely to get a number right eventually. Assuming the person whose number he guesses is not familiar with the trick, it will appear as if the trickster is actually psychic. Should this happen, the trickster can then play the joke out as he wants, hence the "it's totally worth it" at the end.

[[Randall]] has made several smaller references to the number 42 as the answer to the ultimate question about the universe from Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (for instance in [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/1/1c/42_coins.PNG this message] from [[1608: Hoverboard]], and the vision test in [[1213: Combination Vision Test]]. This could be the reason he chose 42+1 as his guess. He both knows Megan, and knows that she knows him. So thinking that he may suspect she would choose 42, she thus adds one, to not choose that exact number... Cueball took a similar reasoning based on his knowledge of Megan and himself, and was lucky this time. Maybe thus increasing his chance to more than 1% as from the title text.

[[Randall]] has made several smaller references to the number 42 as the answer to the ultimate question about the universe from Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (for instance in [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/1/1c/42_coins.PNG this message] from [[1608: Hoverboard]], and the vision test in [[1213: Combination Vision Test]]. This could be the reason he chose 42+1 as his guess. He both knows Megan, and knows that she knows him. So thinking that he may suspect she would choose 42, she thus adds one, to not choose that exact number... Cueball took a similar reasoning based on his knowledge of Megan and himself, and was lucky this time. Maybe thus increasing his chance to more than 1% as from the title text.