Bracketology or Bracket-OH MY-ology?

I wondered over the weekend: If i wanted to be assured of winning my men's college basketball tournament bracket office pool by picking every game correctly, how many different combinations are there in the 63-game format?

Having no clue how to calculate such an equation, I whipped out my cell phone and consulted my favorite source for all things trivial and often nonsensical: ChaCha. ChaCha is a mobile search engine that provides answers to questions users ask while on the go via text message. (Simply text your question to 242 242. Normal text charges from your carrier apply.)

I figured the number of combinations was large, but I had no idea how large. ChaCha’s reply: 18,446,744,073,709,551,616.

That’s 18+ quintillion. I had to look that up, too. Thanks Wikipedia. 

If you took 18 quintillion pennies and laid them out flat like a carpet, they would cover the surface of the earth – 36 times.  Talk about a long shot!

I think I’ll stick to my one bracket and just enjoy the “madness.”

Are you a one bracket guy or something more?  How many brackets will you fill out this year?  Leave us a comment on the blog, Tweet us on Twitter or comment on Facebook.  Thanks for reading!

Comments

[dave belna]

oh, how i dislike people and their faulty math. in the current 63 game bracket system (there are 64 if you include the 'opening round' game in dayton) there are actually 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 ways to fill out your bracket. it is actually an eighth grade concept of using the fundamental counting principle. in each game there are two choices for who is going to win. there are 63 games. so the solution is 2^63. as i stated earlier, close to 9.2 quintillion. the answer that chacha gave would include the opening round game and be 2^64. on any current bracket, they don't make you choose the winner of the opening round.

of course all of this takes into account no skill and all 50-50 probability in each game. matchups are more complicated than that and can drastically change the number of outcomes. for example, in the history of the ncaa tourney, there has never been a 1 seed get beaten by a 16 seed in the first round. if you take those four games out of the mix, there would only be 576,460,752,303,423,488 possibilites or roughly 576 quadrillion (1/16 of the original). only slightly more interesting, but still something to consider.