You may have heard that it takes seven riffle shuffles to randomize a standard deck of cards, and that there is even a proof to back this up. But what does it mean for a deck to be in random order? We will use a card trick from around the turn of the twentieth century to answer this question, study symmetric group algebras, and possibly mention connections to Hochschild homology. This talk is based on the work of Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis.
Using a hundred year old card trick to study group algebras and win money