Had an odd conversation the other day. We were talking about what the most awesome superhero power would be. Here's one we came up with.

Probability Man

This superhero has the power of being able to make the improbable probable at his discretion. Say your arch enemy pushed you off a building. You would surely splat on the sidewalk below, right? Not probability man. Suddenly an open truck filled with pillows and mattresses passes on the road below. You land in it unharmed. I mean what's the probability of that happening? That's your power! Get it? I mean that would be pretty cool. You'd catch random kids falling out of trees, a bus would come everytime you arrive at the bus stop, the cops would never catch you speeding. Bad guys couldn't compete. Say you're standing in a room surrounded by evil henchmen and you are unarmed. What are the chances that all the randomly floating molecules of metal would somehow come together and form a machine gun in your hands? Not very likely. What are the chances all of the bad guys suddenly have a massive heart attack and fall over dead at the same time? Not very good. But you're Probability Man and both situation are equally likely! It would rock. Crime wouldn't stand a chance.

However you wouldn't be without a weakness. See ... you're power is the ability to flip probabilities. Make something with low probability have a high probability. This corresponds to taking the recipical of a small number less than one, you get a big number out. Take the recipical of a large number less than one, and you *also* get a larger number. *So* you would only have the ability to make things more probable, not less probable. So things that would probably happen still will probably happen. Some evil super genius could turn this against you by constructing some trap that has a very high probability of working. You would be powerless to stop him. But in the meantime you'd be materializing guns and watching your enemies drop like flies from random heart attacks and the occasional freak killer bee attack. Probability Man.

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