What is chance?

Earthhorse · 12-10-2015 05:35PM

I like Terry Pratchett's bit about odds: "Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten."

There was a woman who once avoided rolling 7 after 154 rolls on the craps table. The odds of doing that are 1 in 1.56 trillion. Now all you need to do is calculate how many people have rolled at the craps table to determine whether it was overdue or not.

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1901663,00.html

The Corinthian wrote: »

What are the chances of your parents meeting? Falling in love (or otherwise having sex)? Of that particular sperm from your father fusing with that particular egg from your mother? And the chances of both sets of grandparents getting together and making your parents?

Now ask yourself, had it not worked out that way; had your parents never met, or a different sperm reached the egg... how would it change the above questions?

You're right! I'd be taller!

libelula · 12-10-2015 06:08PM

I love this one- by yer man whatzisface...

“Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely- make that miraculously- fortunate in your personal ancestry.
Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, everyone of your forbears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so.
Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from it's life quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - evetually, astoundingly, and all to briefly- in you.”

HiGlo · 12-10-2015 06:12PM

Ha! Loving these stories....

I was reading them all thinking, I don't have a story to tell....

But I do! haha About 3 years ago or so I went to Paris for a few days to visit a friend who was living there. We were out and about one day, can't remember where we were on our way to, and had hopped on the metro. We switched lines along the way but when we got on the train we realised we were going the wrong way so got off at the next stop. Debarked the train and there's a girl I know sitting there! She was an intern in our company about 4 years earlier and hadn't seen or heard of her since....
In a city of whatever million people, I took the wrong train and bumped into the only other person I know in the city! haha

Hagar7 · 12-10-2015 06:24PM

The Corinthian wrote: »

What are the chances of your parents meeting? Falling in love (or otherwise having sex)? Of that particular sperm from your father fusing with that particular egg from your mother? And the chances of both sets of grandparents getting together and making your parents?

Now ask yourself, had it not worked out that way; had your parents never met, or a different sperm reached the egg... how would it change the above questions?

To be or not to be,that is the two questions.

Hagar7 · 12-10-2015 06:30PM

HiGlo wrote: »

Ha! Loving these stories....

I was reading them all thinking, I don't have a story to tell....

But I do! haha About 3 years ago or so I went to Paris for a few days to visit a friend who was living there. We were out and about one day, can't remember where we were on our way to, and had hopped on the metro. We switched lines along the way but when we got on the train we realised we were going the wrong way so got off at the next stop. Debarked the train and there's a girl I know sitting there! She was an intern in our company about 4 years earlier and hadn't seen or heard of her since....
In a city of whatever million people, I took the wrong train and bumped into the only other person I know in the city! haha

That puts me in mind of the time I visited Renton Cemetery on Sept 18th,1980, to visit Jimi's graveside,( met his dad too).
Anyways,the day before,I took a wonder around Seattle and saw the was a huge Zoo so I took a stroll over and the first people I met in the place came from Paisley,just 18 miles from my own town.

The Corinthian · 12-10-2015 07:33PM

Earthhorse wrote: »

You're right! I'd be taller!

Actually you wouldn't be you. It would be someone else, but the discussion on the unlikeliness of them ever existing would be the same.

Hagar7 wrote: »

To be or not to be,that is the two questions.

It's one really. You just don't know which one until it's asked.

This Fat Girl Runs · 12-10-2015 07:45PM

Around 8 years ago I went to Paris for a week. Got to know the people staying in the hostel and we all went out for drinks one night. At the pub, we met a group of Irish lads on holiday. Turns out one of them lived in the same apartment block as I did.

What are the odds?

Satts · 12-10-2015 07:59PM

Hagar7 wrote: »

Seriously?
Here's the reason I ask and does anyone have a story like it,this I find utterly incredible.
Was at a funeral in Edinburgh 2 months ago,my aunt's sister died.

What are the chances of your Aunt's sister also being your Aunt ?

Maximus Alexander · 12-10-2015 08:04PM

Satts wrote: »

What are the chances of your Aunt's sister also being your Aunt ?

Surely that would depend on how many sisters your parents have?

Eugene Norman · 12-10-2015 08:09PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Surely that would depend on how many sisters your parents have?

Unless there was adoption or something an aunts sisters, being also one of your parents' sisters, is an aunt.

Eugene Norman · 12-10-2015 08:19PM

Totofan99 wrote: »

Have a read of this OP:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlewood%27s_law

I think littlewood is exagerating how many "events" we would notice. Not one per second. But the idea still stands, it just would take longer than a month.

Also people forget the numerator. An article I was reading about two brothers killed in 2003 in Finland, cycling at the exact same time – pretty much – at opposite ends of a village by two different but related drivers ( related but not from the village and in the village without knowledge of each other being there) pointed out that the real thing you should take away from the story -- where the odds of it happening to the brothers are indeed very very low -- is that it was in Finland in 2003. The article was written in 2010 in the US but the author knew about it because it became news in the US, and worldwide. Not front page but widely reported.

In short how ever small the odds they needed to be multiplied by the number of days in say a decade* and number of cyclists on the planet.

* assuming something like this happens once a decade.

Maximus Alexander · 12-10-2015 08:20PM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Unless there was adoption or something an aunts sisters, being also one of your parents' sisters, is an aunt.

Your aunt's sister could be your mother, so not an aunt.

RoadhouseBlues · 12-10-2015 08:28PM

About 10 years ago I worked in Pittsburgh for a while. I was in the middle of city one evening at the bus stop. This American and his daughter came up to me looking for directions. They were from another state. I said sorry and explained I had just moved over from Ireland and was just finding my way myself. They asked me what part of Ireland I was from, and proceeded to tell me about the B & B they stayed at a month earlier that is just 10 mins from my home place:-)
Also when my mother died, I was leaving the hospital and I had no money. I was broke. I had been driving to the hospital daily and I needed money for petrol. I walked down the steps of the hospital and was heading to the car wondering what I was going to do, and just happened to glance down and found 20 Euros on the ground. Was it luck or chance or something else. I will never know.

Eugene Norman · 12-10-2015 08:28PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Your aunt's sister could be your mother, so not an aunt.

He would have said mother. This isn't a riddle.

Maximus Alexander · 12-10-2015 08:50PM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

He would have said mother. This isn't a riddle.

It's After Hours - it can be a riddle if we want it to be.

Anyway, he was presumably talking about his parent's brother's wife's sister. An aunt's sister, but not an aunt.

Hagar7 · 12-10-2015 09:06PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

It's After Hours - it can be a riddle if we want it to be.

Anyway, he was presumably talking about his parent's brother's wife's sister. An aunt's sister, but not an aunt.

That is correct MA,it saves any arguments.:)

Satts · 12-10-2015 09:14PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

It's After Hours - it can be a riddle if we want it to be.

Anyway, he was presumably talking about his parent's brother's wife's sister. An aunt's sister, but not an aunt.

His parent's brother's wife would be his Aunt in law and not his Aunt.

An Aunt in law is a completely different animal.

Satts · 12-10-2015 09:18PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Surely that would depend on how many sisters your parents have?

No, your Aunt's sister is still your Aunt.
The very fact your Aunt would have a sister suggests the parent had at least two sisters. If they had more or not is irrelevant.

Senna · 12-10-2015 09:58PM

My uncle was in a restaurant in New York and the waiter turned out to be a good friend of mine who grew up across the road from me. That's the small world part of the story. Later that evening my uncle went to Giant Stadium to watch a game and the same friend was sitting in the row of seats behind him, in an 80000 seater stadium.

Notavirus.exe · 12-10-2015 10:01PM

I won a race against a million other little sperms.

chris445 · 13-10-2015 09:24AM

Satts wrote: »

No, your Aunt's sister is still your Aunt.
The very fact your Aunt would have a sister suggests the parent had at least two sisters. If they had more or not is irrelevant.

If the parents had 3 girls there would be a 50:50 chance that his aunts sister is his aunt. His aunts other sister is his mother.

So the chances really do depend on how many sisters she has.

yourdeadwright · 13-10-2015 10:56AM

i was in work about 2 years ago a big company about 35 people on my floor and the receptionist phone rang while she was away from her desk so i answered it,
It was an American women looking for a Tony Walsh, to which i replied sorry there is no one of that name who works here, She told me she was trying to ring a house number ,then the penny dropped and i remember this was my next-door neighbours name but surely it wasn't him she was looking for,
Turns out it she was his deceased brothers daughter and was trying to reconnect with the family after years of not seeing or speaking to them,
It was so odd she had literally dialled a wrong number , if she dialled the right one she would have got there old house they moved out of 20 years pervious,

Lollipops23 · 13-10-2015 12:42PM

I was in Toronto for a few months- in Jan/Feb of this year myself and my mates were at a house party that was really dull. We decided to head to the pub around the corner-a fairly small and shítty bar.

Enjoying my drink and chatting away, I suddenly hear my full name roared across the pub. I look up and realise after squinting a *lot* that an old school friend had just walked in. We're not fb friends so neither of us knew the other was in Canada, let alone Toronto.

Insane, especially as it wasn't a bar typically frequented by Irish expats.

Hagar7 · 15-10-2015 08:55PM

Okay,I know you won't believe this but my wife and I went to a hotel near Kilmarnock about 5 years ago and it was time for the evening dinner,as the crowd gathered outside the main hall I could hear laughter as the young girl was taking names on entry,the 3 previous couples were all Mr and Mrs Smith,we were the fourth and the couple after us were also Smith,true story by the way.&#55357;&#56838;&#55357;&#56838;&#55357;&#56838;

wakka12 · 15-10-2015 09:15PM

God thats insane OP! I think Id have a mini existential crisis if something as strange as that happened to me tbh.

Hagar7 · 19-10-2015 11:14PM

wakka12 wrote: »

God thats insane OP! I think Id have a mini existential crisis if something as strange as that happened to me tbh.

It's an amazing world out there wakka,some things are so strange they make us wonder how life works.

Tell me how · 19-10-2015 11:31PM

I was walking into Dublin city centre from Grand Canal Dock one morning when I saw a pretty lady with blue/cream shoes. I actually saw the shoes first and thought instinctively "they're kinda classy".

About 12 hours later in a town in the west of Ireland a lady walked out of a shop in front of me who gave me a kind of deja vu feeling. I glanced down and saw the shoes which confirmed it was the same lady.

Was going to tap her on the shoulder and tell her the story but thought she'd freak out.
On a separate note, I'd love to meet a partner through a story like that. If only I ever got the chance....

What is chance?

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