Every person who has ever lived — 117 billion of us — sits down with a deck.

Each one starts shuffling. One shuffle per second. Forever.

They begin at the moment of the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago.

The pile of decks they've shuffled would dwarf every grain of sand on Earth, billions of times over.

And it would still be one trillion-trillion-trillionth of 52!. Essentially nothing.

Imagine the worst hand of poker ever played.

You're at a table. Five-card draw. Seven other players.

You're dealt four of a kind. 1 in 4,165.

Every player at the table has a straight flush.

All seven of them.

You have the third-strongest hand in poker. You're losing to everyone at the table.

1 in 2 nonillion.

In the same instant, you check your phone. You won the Powerball.

In the same instant, the player to your left checks his phone. He won too.

You play another hand. The same thing happens.

Quads. Seven straight flushes. Two Powerball jackpots.

Now play one of these hands every second.

When the last star in the universe burns out —

in one hundred trillion years —

you will not be one percent of the way there.

You won't be one percent of one percent.

Keep playing.

Set a timer for 52! seconds. Stand on the equator.

Every billion years, take one step forward.

When you've walked around the Earth, take a drop of water from the Pacific Ocean.

When the Pacific is empty, lay a sheet of paper on the ground.

When the stack of paper reaches the Sun, repeat the whole process 1,000 times.

You'll be roughly one-third of the way through.