Math's Puzzle : Odds

[threaded]

So that's,

10 x 6.965 = 69.65, turn the . in to a , then add 66 zeroes to the end, right ?

I hated maths at school. Literature was my thing, sorry.

Well in Literature terms, it's up there with the chances of an infinite number of monkeys producing the combined works of William Shakespeare.

Once thought to be 'of course they could', but now with the invention of the internet known to be vanishingly small.

[Board Game Geek]

erm from what I think I've found out

1 and then 66 zero's

1 billion is 1 then 9 zero's

so it would be 10 <seven billions> or there abouts
i.e
around 10 billion billion billion billion billion billion billion to 1
or
10 trillion trillion trillion trillion to 1 chance

correct?

Looks good enough to me. Thank you Chef.

I think we've entered the zone where is so many trillions, it doesn't really matter to be honest.

What's a few trillions between friends eh ?

[Board Game Geek]

Well in Literature terms, it's up there with the chances of an infinite number of monkeys producing the combined works of William Shakespeare.

Yes, but can you even begin to imagine the smell ?

And the noise, dear God, the noise !!!!

And where the hell do you get a warehouse big enough for this enterprise ?

Plus the crippling costs in bananas, furniture, paper, typing equipment, ink.

I don't think that idea's going to pass Dragon's Den somehow.

And for that reason, I'm out.

[Drewster]

Can anyone suggest how to put those odds in to perspective for the layperson to understand ?

For the "average" Layperson.... "It ain't gonna happen"

Hows that?

[Bunk]

Put it this way, the number of atoms in the universe is thought to be between 4x10^79 and 10^81, so 6x10^66 is getting towards that kind of scale.

[dude69]

Thank you Threaded !

I best get Excel fired up and write a formula.

I'll probably do it like this.

65/300 = j1
64/299 = j2
63/298 = j3
drag down

total = j1xj2xj3xetc

Cheers !

no need for that, just =combin(300,65) for the number of combinations or =1/combin(300,65) for the probability.

[DS23]

....If 300 people were in a masssive room, and only 65 of those people were called "John" :

What would be the odds of me walking in to that room.....

surely the odds are even greater. don't you have to calculate how many doors there are first?

[Bagpuss]

If most people knew a little bit about probabilty, Camelot would be bancrupt and Noel's box or no box wouldn't be on

[DaveB]

If you want a laymans example:

You'd have a better chance of walking out into the sahara desert and finding a specific grain of sand simply by picking one a random.

[DS23]

and how pissed would you be if after opening all those doors and finally finding a suitable room filled with the right number of people and tapping all those shoulders they all said they were john until the very last one?