Why can chain letters work?
Now let’s assume that everyone on the list is honest and just perpetuating the “chain.” (After all, these letters do emhpasize being HONEST.) Then if everyone on the list has made five copies, you are one of 5**5 or 3,125 people receiving copies in your “generation” of the letter. So far, the numbers don’t seem outlandish. And looking the other way, you stand to get postcards from 3125 people. That doesn’t seem impossible either. But view it as the “chain” you’re in the middle of, and there will be 5**11 or 48,828,125 people receiving copies in that generation of the letter. If distribution were confined to the United States, there wouldn’t be enough people left who hadn’t already received a copy for the next generation.
