How lucky is too lucky?: The Minecraft Speedrunning Dream Controversy Explained 

I’m not commenting on how many takes that took. But feel free to guess! (And if you must know: the complete footage of every attempt will be uploaded to Patreon. patreon.com/standupmaths )

Obviously, the talking head scenes were shot in reverse and dubbed.

I love when you see a Minecraft event so big it hits the wider RU-vid world, including educational content

"So you're saying there's a chance!" is basically Dream's entire defense, btw. Which is hilarious.

"I wasn't cheating" "Well, I was cheating, but I didn't know I was cheating" "Well, I knew I was cheating, but I thought someone else set up the cheats for me"

'I'm not saying he's cheating. I'm just saying if the _entire population of Earth played an entire game of minecraft every second for a hundred years,_ he's still many orders of magnitude luckier than any of them would probably have gotten.'

The missing bracket just means that the rest of the paper, and indeed the rest of all existence after you started reading the formula, is now part of the formula.

that mathematician dream hired is the equivalent of a lawyer having to defend someone who committed murder in front of the judge.

Fun fact; one of the guys who noticed this statical unlikeliness and called dream out got caught cheating by also futsing with the games probability. I guess cheaters recognize cheaters

If only this video came out about 8 years ago when I was trying to present my thesis on "Teaching Math with Minecraft"

I feel bad for dream, he can't even go for a 5 minute walk without getting struck by lightning ten times

My probability class did an exercise... they had one student flip a coin 100 times, and another student was told to just write down H&T randomly, without any props. Professor claimed that he could tell which was the true random series from the coin, because the student doing it by hand would be too shy to put in appropriate-length strings of heads (or tails) in a row. It was a neat game!

This is my 4th time watching this, and I'm now noticing how hard Matt has to keep down his excitement every time he nailed one of his trick shots 😂

Lol, he recently admitted he faked it

Dream when he’s walking down the street and suddenly wins the lottery while simultaneously getting struck by lightning and then is eaten by a shark:

Fun fact: 1 in 2.0x10^22 is like 1 millimetre in 2000 light-years.

...why are people in the comments still trying to argue that Dream could have just gotten lucky? He admitted to having run on a modified client months ago.

This reminds me of a quote I saw online from a journalism class. “If one source says it’s sunny outside and another says it’s pouring. Your job is not to cite both sources, it’s to look out the f*cking window and find out which is right.”

Amazing that you got all of those on the first try

I love the unspoken fact throughout the video that so many shots were filmed in order to get those perfect odds-defying results, like the book throw, the consecutive ball hoops, the dice pairs falling in the results in the right order. Subtle, yet entertainingly on point.

As a Minecraft lover, hearing you describe the process to beat the game made me realize just how strange this game is.

The fact that he definitely played on an altered version and then paid a mathematician to create a biased paper, is such a disgusting move.

Okay, I played minecraft in like 2009-2010 and I did not understand how someone could possibly speed run that game.......turns out it has changed a lot in 10 years

just for perspective, for the 10 billion human second century thing, it would have to take roughly 650.22 centuries for just a SINGLE occurrence of what happened to dream.

I love the concept of the 10 billion human second century, it's a really great way to put kind of abstract seeming, difficult to comprehend odds into perspective

And this friends is why you trust mathematicians who will put their name on their papers, rather than random, unnamed, and unknown astrophysicists. Cause only one of them will willingly admit/defend when they bodge a paper.

Soooo... 10 billion times luckier than the luckiest gambler ever recorded, huh?

The 10 billion human second century is brilliant. Really illustrated the point so clearly and made it possible to conceptualist such extreme odds

Fun fact: assuming there are 7.5e^18 grains of sand in the world (google), it is more likely that two people would randomly pick the exact same grain of sand out of every one on earth than what Dream did.

To put that kind of "luck" in perspective, flip a penny 13 times, and if it lands on heads on all 13 times, go buy 3 lottery tickets with 1/1000000 chances of winning, if you win all 3 lottery tickets, that's the kind of luck dream would have had to have to pull that off legitimately.

The fact that this man actually went to the lengths to understand minecraft is just wonderful

Just the fact that Dream has paid someone to protect him instead of accepting the low chance raises questions

One of the best videos on all of RU-vid

I feel like the Venn diagram of "People who watch Matt" and "People who have played Minecraft" has a larger overlap than you might think...

Joke's on you Matt, I'm here for the maths AND the minecraft

This video is now mentioned on Dream's wikipedia page!

this video is older now but having the book land when you flip it behind you at 17:15 is SUCH a great touch when you just finished debunking the incredibly low possibilities of this being an honest speedrun lmaooo

"154 dice rolls in a row without getting a 7" Whenever the stupid robber is on my bricks in Catan, it feels like we've broken this record...

My level of excitement when seeing a 40-minute video is a testament to how much I love your stuff.

I can't believe whilst procrastinating on tomorrow's advanced math exam I accidentally come across a video that helped me actually learn binomial distribution and probability calculations 😅 a topic which I skipped cause I didn't attend the classes where it was taught LOL Thanks. Will definitely come back for more videos maybe i'll learn some stuff whilst procrastinating 😅😂

dream fans should consider taking a statistics course after they graduate from middle school.

Theory: This video was just an excuse for Matt to film a Dude Perfect video.

This video is basically a "Dude Perfect" video with less yelling.

Just a note on the odds on those craps runs because your math ends up off because of it. The 154 roll streak was without crapping out (losing) *not* without rolling a 7. There could (almost certainly were) 7's in that run. It could have even been literally all 7's. The number for the losing roll varies depending on the phase of the game you're in. One "game" of craps consists of one or two phases. You start with a "coming out" roll. If you roll a 7 or 11 you win immediately. If you roll a 2, 3, or 12, you lose immediately. If you roll 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 that becomes your "point" and you enter the second phase. In the second phase, you win if you roll your point number before rolling a 7 and lose if you roll a 7.

The fact that a physicist did the math for Dream should tell you everything you need to know. The number of arguments I (mostly jokingly) had with physicists about how to do maths because they couldn't be bothered to do it correctly is _high_ 😂

The "10 Billion Human Second Century" is one of the funniest things I've ever heard in mathematics. Also genius in how easy it is to convey to the public at large.

That slight smile he gives when he realizes he got the take.

I think this video is up for ‘most complete content on RU-vid’ awards. It’s beautiful. It’s funny. It’s clever. It’s magnificent. Congratulations Matt.

Imagine being the luckiest human that ever existed... And coming fourth... That has gotta sting a bit. 😬😅

"After considering this, I ended up finding out that I HAD actually been using a disallowed modification during ~6 of my live streams on Twitch.." -Dream

This controversy has spawned some of the most interesting crossovers I’ve ever watched

I enjoy coming back to this one every so often because of how evergreen this video is. Despite being focused on what is now a years-old, and largely resolved, controversy, the core of what he's teaching us about throughout the entire thing is just as relevant today as it was then. The inherently suspicious nature of maths chaff, a simple tool of comparison for how likely a thing is in our universe, even simple things like how to understand scientific notation. It's a true masterpiece of a video, and the level of effort that must have gone into it really shines through. And not just because of the impossible shots he made in the background - though, every time I come back, I do wonder how the probabilities of the various shots he took match up to Dream's theoretical odds.

I failed maths GCSE in secondary school and had to redo it in college where I barely passed. I understand on an intellectual level that maths is genuinely beautiful in its order and magical in its ability to be strange and chaotic. It is the backbone of science that I love and the lore behind scifi sometimes relies upon maths to backfill the details from the stuff made up on the fly to suit stories. I am talking here about how nerds know how warp drive works, how fast the different ships go in different eras and how many shuttles and torpedoes Voyager had and used. The maths isn't what you do but it's there as a background. Then there's the maths of how games like Minecraft are coded. How you can enter the same seed and the world will generate in the same way (at least to a certain extent. I'm not sure if there comes a point where the generation has built on generation enough that two worlds with the same seed are different). I have been watching videos from James Hoffman this past Christmas about coffee and that involves maths, videos about chemistry from Nile red and that involves maths. On a more practical level I've been playing Fallout 4 with mods and had to come up against the mathematical limitations of the code and my machine. All this to say I am bad at maths and while I respect its role in the things I love I hate it because I suck st it. The first time I can remember having a panic attack it was because I was in an advanced GCSE class about some kind of maths and my impression was that we were being told to divide in a way that made numbers bigger and my brain could not cope. In hindsight it was probably phrasing i.e. that if you cut a log in half say you end up with two bits of wood so it's phrasing as dividing but was actually multiplication. At the time my brain just melted down. I came to this video for the Minecraft but not knowing or caring who Dream is and not liking maths. I loved the video and you explained it well. Though my idiot brain still says that it doesn't seem that unlikely to get drops that to my idiot brain don't feel that egregious. I am bad at maths so I know I am wrong but it's interesting that even after my video my brain is going "I don't know though..." Lol i like what you said about it being the difference between deliberately throwing a dart from a plane to hit a bullseye and throwing a dart from the plane, it landing point down and you then drawing a bullseye around it because as someone bad about maths I only know about probability when it's improbable. Stories are not written about the predictable. Videos are not made talking about the usual so to my brain a once in a lifetime occurrence feels like it happens regularly. I've watched ocean liner and engineering disaster videos where the videos are made because the metaphorical dart from the plane landed face down where a bullseye could be drawn. They were random spikes in the broth of chaos that happens all the time but were singled out as different from the broth and my perception of plausibility comes from seeing so many of these rare spikes. Tldr great video subscribed

Dream: Damn those odds are really unlikely *googles "astronomical odds expert"*

Hearing Matt say the words "Ender Pearl" and "Blaze Rods" is a strange phenomenon.

This video is especially fun to watch after seeing the one with Hannah Fry on Bayesian statistics where Matt repeatedly fails to throw a ball onto a table. But now, he *very mysteriously* cannot miss a target! Also, the explanation of the math is superb.

I really love the level of detail the speedrunning judges went into for the paper. You call it rambly, I call it Great Effort! genuinely really good work. you did it better but to be fair you are a famous mathematician lol

So using Math, he basically "confirmed" everyones suspicion...the odds of Dream getting pearls and rods that fast are not 0, but boy it's the closest thing to 0

Dude holy crap. Like, I look at “getting 42/262 when 12/262 is the drop rate” and think “eh that’s lucky but doesn’t seem insane” until you actually do the math on it. That’s bonkers.

The look of pride and satisfaction when he looked to see if he hit the bullseye and saw he finally did is priceless. Plus keeping up the level of expressive narration after that many takes is impressive in and of itself. Just genuinely impressed with this channel especially because I know you do another channel that's way more serious but I can't place atm.

Making this video might be the single smartest thing Matt's ever done on his RU-vid channel. It's only a year and a half old but it's his second-most popular video, second only to his Dr. Nim video which is 5 years older. And I'm sure it attracted a ton of newcomers from the Minecraft community.

"What I'm saying is, if every single human in existence was doing a speedrun of Minecraft every single second around the clock-- every human doing it!-- for a century, the odds are still you would never see a result anywhere near what Dream got." That settles it then.

Respect for the MC Speedrunning Team for making a 29 page formal investigation

I appreciated how you made your points without wading into speculation or assigning blame. The human-second-century is a nice way to get some intuition in a very unintuitive range of probabilities. Thanks!

Its like if you flip 15 coins, and they all get hit by different meteors.

I was kinda on dream's side. But then I saw the parenthesis wasn't closed in the papers that sided with him. Unforgivable.

Thank you Dream for cheating and letting me find this incredible channel which also made Numberphile and Sixty Symbols pop up on my recommended, and now I can't stop watching and learning.

I love how indepth your efforts are in explaining this while managing to keep the over all ideas in layman's terms. Brilliant. I want to make two comments because of it. (Appologize if my first thought isn't well explained but I will attempt to do my best.) 1) It reminds me about highschool math and how if is often harder to add ideas/areas together is often harder than trying to take the larger shape/upper bound and substract from that to prove your result. Your method reminds me of that because I remember always forgeting to think about that option in working an idea out. 2) It makes me wonder what is the LUCKIEST EVER event an individual has achieved (both proven and/or unproven) to have existed. Anyways, thank you for the video.

You totally aced it, and you brought back the discussion to the level it belongs. Deep maths and statistics shall not be abused unless necessary.

Matt: "If you're here for the Minecraft, I'll explain the math clearly. If you're here for the math, I'll explain the Minecraft clearly." Me: I'm only here for the beard

"As an expert in getting things wrong" The Parker Square will follow this man to his grave.

Hey I did not expect to sit through the entire video. Now I'm glad I did, and I even ordered a copy of Humble Pi! This year I've been assigned to teach Pre-Calculus/Calculus courses and I've rekindled my love of maths. Thank you for doing what you do!

It's bizarre that people are still trying to argue that Dream might have just got lucky when they already confessed to cheating over a year ago. Like, not only are the statistics definitive in proving that they didn't get it by chance, *they themself said* they didn't - Matt Parker is entirely vindicated here. Completely inexplicable. Well, except the part where people are still watching and commenting on the video. That part makes perfect sense, it's great.

A mathematician who knows the difference between "uninterested" and "disinterested." That alone is impressive.

It's interesting that he probably only increased his odds by a little bit, thinking it wouldn't be noticed, but forgetting that when you do things a lot of times, even a small increase in chances has a large statistical impact

Had this one on watch later for a while after it kept popping up in the suggestions, completely forgot about it until Steve mold posted today congratulating on the million subs.. well I'm subbed now as well 👍

This is one of my favourites for the simple fact Matt came up with a human second century to make it easily understandable

I can't tell if the book-toss was: 1) Good enough to count, no more takes, just move on. 2) Better than intended, since it didn't slot into the others but it's upright and fully visible. 3) Exactly as intended.

My Data class in University recommended this video for us to watch as to how to detect cheating. This entire story is hilarious, especially since he fought back against actual professors and used misleading data. He's such a textbook example of cheating, lmfao.

12:20 some added context for those watching this video now, MinecrAvenger was exposed as cheating in the same way! in fact, MinecrAvenger was cheating much more egregiously than Dream and for a much longer time

For those who think it wasn't on purpose, you're delusional. Why would he at any point have a mod that very slightly modified the spawn rate of speed run specific items? For 6 streams? Obviously he knew and was doing it on purpose.

I know I am a bit late. But I love how, Matt gave Dream, the highest benefit of the doubt, by giving him 10 billion instead of the *calculated* 7.9 billion population (in 2021) and still Dream was orders of magnituted luckier than all of them.

Imagine getting odds better then if ever human for a century speedran the game and only getting 4th fastest run in the world

This video is like comfort food to me. I've watched it probably 10 times now! It never gets old! Who knew probability and statistics could be so entertaining?

I would be so pissed if the universe gave me that kind of luck for minecraft of all things

Given my watch history of countless Minecraft videos, and every video on both yours and Numberphile's channels, I'm sure the RU-vid algorithm positively pissed itself with excitement when recommending this video to me.

10:12 The smile of someone who won't need to record the lines again.

Matt's Method is phenomenal. At least to me as a non mathematician it seems so elegant. Upper bounds are standart in maths I know, but used like this it shows why its useful. There is a fairly brutal dunk in here as well, one that Matt is too nice to go for, but it is completely mercieless. This is too lucky to be true, one person cannot expect to have results anywhere close to this - Well but there is a lot of people trying to get this, maybe if... - No. All of humanity trying wouldn't make this plausible. - But What if people were really dedicated and spent a lot of time trying it? - No, all of humanity wouldn't get this if they spent the next century trying - But speedrunners are really good, they know when a run is not gonna make it, they will just reset, what if Dream was just incredible at optimizing? - No, the model assumes all of humanity is absolutely insane at speedrunning and takes on average a second per run. They aren't taking breaks either btw, not to eat, drink, sleep or work, this is all they do for a full century, and they still only have odds of one in a thousand

This video aged very well given that he admitted to having an rng mod

It was Dream's big picture all along, he wanted to teach the young people statistics

This is why you get a disinterested expert. They can explain it in a way that is simplified and not tripping over himself trying to justify himself.

The 5 year olds coping in the comments are just as entertaining as the video itself. The gift that keeps on giving

I love the 2x10^22 probability when looking at a "History of the universe dartboard" If you were to throw a dart at a random second on a timeline that spanned between the moment the universe came into existence to today (13.7 billion years), the probability of hitting any particular second of time is 4.3x10^17.... which is still a significantly better odds than the drop rate he got. How much better? well, take the length of the universe and multiply it 50,000 times and throw the same dart. He would have had to hit a specific second of time in a timeline that is 685 TRILLION years long. Another way to look at it, is to pick a grain of sand on the entire globe. There is estimated 7.5x10^21 grains of sand in the world.... Now, double the size of the world and do it again. It's still a better chance to pick that single grain of sand in a world that is twice as large as Earth.

I actually think it's really neat that a community-run speedrunning website published a competent (at worst 'Undergrad lab paper') mathematical paper on this.

The Dude Perfect team is sweating Nervously right now.

That was unbelievably impressive and love how you looked and could tell you were thinking "yes finally ffs!" but kept gking with the script cuz you had to after 1,000 takes. Lol. Well done and what an intro to your channel! Can't reply under your comment cuz this video is too awesome.

Thanks, that's a really great video. I think another interesting layer on top of that, which may be relevant for many situations and comparisons is how difficult would it be to stack up the odds in that particular situation. While it is much harder to quantify, I think it can add perspective.

As a person who has played Minecraft from basically the very beginning, and also a regular viewer who has a deep amateur interest in math(s), this video is twice as good for me as usual.

I'm so glad someone finally did a proper, clear, succinct, and entertaining explanation of this. Props mate!

This is such a good video. I still come back and watch the full thing. It’s fun, witty, informative on a nice casual topic. Much love ❤