An interaction simulation to explore the question: "Is success luck or hard work?"
In January of 2020 NASA selected 11 people to become astronauts out of the more than 18,300 people who applied. Did the 11 astronauts get a little lucky or was it solely a result of hard work?
Run it on repl.it to see what happens! - https://repl.it/@Baker_WilliamWi/LuckOrHardWork
Experiment with different numbers, or change the effort/luck weights using EFFORT_WEIGHT and LUCK_WEIGHT.
Possible statistics to experiment with:
- Select the number of Stanford admits from the number of college freshmen that year.
- Select the number of billionaires in the US from the population of the US.
Some questions for reflection:
- What do the results of this simulation say about the possible effects of luck and skill in highly selective programs?
- In what ways can this simulation be misleading?
- What successes have you had that were supported by luck and circumstance?
Inspired by Veritasium's video "Is Success Luck or Hard Work?"