Since August, a series of catastrophic airplane accidents have occurred consecutively. Numerous disasters on land and at sea have relentlessly struck humanity. Many have remarked that this is a normal development of the “law of series.”
Life is filled with countless “coincidences” happening simultaneously to the point that many philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians have continuously researched and proposed essays, theories, and formulas to explain the causes and events. “No roll of the dice can ever eliminate randomness,” exclaimed poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Many mathematicians have explained that multiple rolls of the dice could delay the emergence of coincidence and randomness.
For instance, in 1713, Jacques Bernoulli proposed the theory of large numbers, marking the beginning of the science of probability.
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Jacques Bernoulli |
According to this theory, we can believe that the probability of airplane accidents, specifically six plane crashes within a few weeks, will gradually approach zero as more planes take to the skies. It’s based on Bernoulli’s mathematical theory of large numbers that today we can predict risks and the potential for companies to go bankrupt. Certainly, insurance companies understand this theory better than anyone else.
Should we completely dismiss the belief in the law of series when observing a chain of events that seem unreasonable, illogical, and nonsensical? In 1900, Paul Kammerer, a young Austrian biologist, reacted differently. He documented all the random incidents that happened to him. His discoveries astonished many, as author Arthur Koestler noted in his book “Les racines du hasard” (published by Calmann-Lévy). “In 1915, two soldiers were admitted to a hospital in Bohemia on the same day. They were both 19 years old, born in Silesia, suffering from pneumonia, volunteered for the army, and both had the name… Franz Richter!!!”
Is this a fictional tale in the style of Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories, like “William Wilson”? No, it is 100% true, and even the renowned scientist Albert Einstein commented that Kammerer’s work was “very special, not at all irrational or unbelievable.”
Thus, Kammerer is considered the founder of the “law of series,” which explains that “in the universe, there is a force, similar to gravity, that gathers together what is similar and identical.”
Even the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung took an interest in the research of Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer, and after collaborating with physicist Wolfgang Pauli (a Nobel Laureate in Physics), they laid the foundation for the theory of “synchronicity,” which many experts now recognize as closely related to the theory proposed by Paul Kammerer.
In contemporary history, the overlapping stories of Kennedy and Lincoln, two famous U.S. presidents, are the most frequently discussed. They were elected as the supreme leaders of the United States 100 years apart and were both assassinated in front of many witnesses, shot in the head—Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre and Kennedy in a Ford car, both on a Friday.
The two assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Oswald, were also born 100 years apart. Booth shot President Lincoln in the theater and then hid in a barn, while Oswald fired at President Kennedy from a warehouse before being captured in a theater. Both assassins were killed before they could be brought to trial. The two successors, Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson, were born in 1808 and 1908, respectively. Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy, while Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.
Recently, it has been established that Oswald and Booth were not born 100 years apart (Booth was born in 1838, and Oswald in 1939). Additionally, while Evelyn Lincoln was a secretary for President Kennedy, President Lincoln appears to have had only two personal secretaries, John J. Nicolay and John M. Hay, with no other secretary named Kennedy.
Current Knowledge
