For me it is the fact that our blood contains iron. I earlier used to believe the word stood for some ‘organic element’ since I couldn’t accept we had metal flowing through our supposed carbon-based bodies, till I realized that is where the taste and smell of blood comes from.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
53 points
*

The birthday paradox

If you get 23 people in a room the odds of two of them sharing a birthday are 50%

The birthday paradox is a veridical paradox: it seems wrong at first glance but is, in fact, true. While it may seem surprising that only 23 individuals are required to reach a 50% probability of a shared birthday, this result is made more intuitive by considering that the birthday comparisons will be made between every possible pair of individuals. With 23 individuals, there are (23 × 22)/2 = 253 pairs to consider, far more than half the number of days in a year.

permalink
report
reply
22 points

it’s not part of the paradox, but there are also days when people tend to have more sex
like new years, valentines, christmas etc. (in the west at least)
so you tend to get more people born 9 months after those days

permalink
report
parent
reply
permalink
report
parent
reply

This seems like a logistical nightmare for all systems related to pregnancy and childcare if it were to actually become a popular thing, like damn, just pay people for having kids its not that hard

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

In high school my graduating class was 38. The one before us was 21, the one after 18.

Coincidently there was a massive blizzard that snowed everybody into their house for a week about 9 months before my birthday.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Yeah that’s why so many people have birthdays in September

permalink
report
parent
reply

I listen to This American Life also.

permalink
report
parent
reply

i don’t know what that is

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points

Blows my mind how this by its bare bones is just simple statistics and combinations but is a totally different story when described in English. I’m sure there are similar facts like this that are mathematically logical but to a layman is confusing and inconceivable.

permalink
report
parent
reply

I’m sure there are similar facts like this that are mathematically logical materially sound but to an layman american it’s confusing and inconceivable

communism

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

I’d test this, but I don’t have 22 friends.

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

The concept of a room is malleable. Go to a 22 person tf2 server and ask birthdays.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

But you need 23 people.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

So not really then. I’ve always heard this but not seen it explained. But what you’re saying is that with every interaction the likely hood of finding a match goes up. But realistically, probabilities like that are just fun quirks of math, not representations of reality. Probabilities are doing the math on events, but these are events discussing concrete and unchanging dates. Every person paired up isn’t given a random date in every interaction. They have a set date from the outset, you just don’t know it. There’s not a random number generator picking a number from a set every time. Unless you’re in a simulation and none of this is real and birthdays don’t exist and the computer you’re plugged into has to make up a random birthday every time you interact.

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

Sorry, but I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say. If you have questions you can click on the Wikipedia link!

permalink
report
parent
reply
-3 points

Ah. Sorry, I assumed you knew what you were talking about about and not just copy/pasting a thing you found. My bad.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

That’s completely wrong lol. Nowhere is there an assumption that birthdays are randomized each time, you just don’t understand the math.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Asklemmy

!asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Create post

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it’s welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Icon by @Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de

Community stats

  • 9.7K

    Monthly active users

  • 4.9K

    Posts

  • 275K

    Comments