Mathematics
Part of the appeal for this game is that, unlike random chance games like rock, paper, scissors, amidakuji will always create a 1:1 correspondence, and can handle arbitrary numbers of pairings (although pairing sets with only two items each would be fairly boring). It is guaranteed that two items at the top will never have the same corresponding item at the bottom, nor will any item on the bottom ever lack a corresponding item at the top.
It also works regardless of how many horizontal lines are added. Each person could add one, two, three, or any number of lines, and the 1:1 correspondence would remain. The more lines that are added, the more unpredictable the final outcome is.
One way of realizing how this works is to consider the analogy of coins in cups. You have n coins in n cups, representing the items at the bottom of the amidakuji. Then, each leg that is added represents swapping the position of two adjacent cups. Thus, it is obvious that in the end there will still be n cups, and each cup will have one coin, regardless of how many swaps you perform.
Read more about this topic: Ghost Leg
Famous quotes containing the word mathematics:
“Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don’t happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don’t understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)