Originally Posted by
gavin
Once upon a time there was a magic bowl of fruit. It had 6 plums, 6 apples, 6 pears and 6 oranges. A hungry family ate half of the fruit each day - totally at random. This being a magic bowl of fruit, every remaining item duplicated itself overnight.
After the first night, how many types of fruit had you lost - any?! Half of them? I can't be bothered working out the probabilities, but in many cases all would survive into the subsequent year (no, day) despite the high overall attrition rate.
The system is self-balancing. If a fruit gets slightly more abundant than is its due, it is more likely to be picked and its frequency will fall back again. Although random events will eliminate single types of fruit from time to time, in general an equilibrium is reached.
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