He wanted to know more, despite the complexity of the subject.
He would have to describe himself as a layman who wanted to know more about the financial services industry. With this in mind, he attended a free information seminar. During this two-hour evening, devoted to making money from investments and the workings of the stock exchange, there were repeated references to the Longfrost-Bunsworth Principle of Statistical Probability. Despite it being generally accepted that any one chance event will have no bearing on any future chance events, the Longfrost-Bunsworth Principle shows that the outcome of a random event can offer a degree of predictability when working with a small example. As interesting as it was to see graphs and tables based on this principle, there was no information given about who Longfrost and Bunsworth were.
Later that same evening, while it was all still fresh in his mind, he sat down at his computer. It turned out that Reginald Longfrost was the owner of a large ice-cream factory that is still a thriving business that he built up virtually from scratch, while Arthur Bunsworth, who inherited a chain of bakeries when his father died, and has since expanded the business with more shops opened in several other towns around the country.
Although it wasn’t clear how these two wealthy men came up with the principle in question, there were a number of versions concerning this. The majority had it that it was discussed and developed late one evening aboard Bunsworth’s yacht, the ‘Unlikely’. It is said that Bunsworth and Longfrost had spent the greater part of one particular evening playing poker, when a conversation was struck up that dealt with statistical probabilities. It is reported that after finishing off a bottle of Cherry Brandy, the two men scribbled down the said principle, using several coasters.
However, despite being a layman and having little or no specialised knowledge concerning such things, he couldn’t help thinking that the possibility of these two inebriated men could actually discover this principle was highly unlikely.
Unless, of course, one applied the Longfrost-Bunsworth Principle of Statistical Probability.