Wrath of Dagon

Actually I have to admit I just did find a mistake in my calculation, which I think is what Balthamael was trying to get at earlier. I think when you're calculating her specific odds each time you have to divide the chance of the lottery by the amount of money she spent over the period in question, which is something I was having doubts about and convinced myself of the opposite. So if the lottery odds are 1 in 10 million (I think that's about what they are in the Texas scratch off), and she spent 10000 over the period she's been playing, her chances of winning each lottery would be 1 in 1000. So conservatively assuming there are 100 people in the world who won the lottery twice, and that they keep playing each having invested on average 10000, the odds of someone out of them winning the lottery again (that is for the third time) are 1000 / 100, i.e. 1/10. Then that one person winning again would be 1 / (10 * 1000) i.e. 1 / 10000, still really bad odds but I suppose within the realm of possibilty.

The only way this works is if you're trying to calculate the odds of someone winning a game of chance in which winning the first time is a pre-requisite for eligibility to play the second time. The lottery doesn't work that way, though, since anyone can play the second time regardless of the result the first time around; in other words the probability of winning doesn't actually change in terms of the 4th one vs the 1st one. No, but you can't win the second time if you haven't won the first time already. And we're trying to calculate probabilties of someone winning the second, third, and fourth time, by definition the previous win is a pre-requisite for the next one. That's why you have to take the chances of winning once to the fourth power if we want the probabilities of a specific person winning 4 times, or do you disagree with that?

Wait, WHAT? You're going about that all wrong. The chances of somebody winning again are based on their individual chances compared to every other participant in the second contest. You don't keep "slimming down" the pool/odds so that it's harder and harder to win like that. The chances overall of that sequence of events happening are lower than them winning a contest, but they still have the same chances to win the contest as any other participant. Again, I'm talking about the chances of someone in the world winning, not a specific person winning. A specific (pre-determined) person winning the lottery 4 times has even much lower odds. It would really be septillions, like the article stated.

As I keep trying to explain, it depends on the pool of how many people can win. For someone to win once, you got the pool of all the people playing worldwide. For someone to win twice, only the people who won once already are eligible, in other words a much smaller pool. For someone to win three times, only people who won twice already are eligible, a mere handful. To win the fourth time, it's that exact woman who would have to win again, since to my knowledge she's the only one in the world who had won major lotteries 3 times. Btw, I found out some more about the scratch off lotteries. Turns out the winning number is already on the ticket, and the number you scratch off has to match, depending on how many digits match is how much money you win. The tickets have a bar code scanned at the time of sale, so they can verify the ticket you present isn't fake but matches the ticket that was sold. There seems to be ample opportunity for fraud if you have an insider or can hack into the lottery computers.

It does matter, as I demonstrated using alanschu's example. You need to use that if you calculate probabilities in which some events have already happened and some haven't. Granted it's a fairly trivial calculation, but it can lead to a lot of misunderstanding if not done correctly. Another example would be trying to calculate the odds of a hand of blackjack winning if you remember which cards have already been discarded.

Never as in before the universe ends? I'd say very close to 1. Never as in infinity? Then you've multiplied it by infinity, i.e. you get probability 1 (or actually something infinitely close to 1) that it will happen, but multiplying by infinity is not a good idea. That's why I keep saying "for all practical purposes".

Why?

Oh, sorry, which one is that? If it's something silly where you misunderstand probability for the 1000th time in this thread, don't even bother waiting for a reply, though. So you don't even read what I post, you're just here to insult me, is that it? My simple question (posted right after your post) is whether you know that the probabiltiy of an event which has already happended is 1?

Nice try at evasion Krezack, you still haven't answered my very simple and direct question.

Your previous post was about probabilies, when I answered that your counter argument is something about what's possible at low odds, which has nothing to do with what I commented on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nastassja_Kinski I guess 15 and little boys are all OK in France though.

Um, lol! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value Hahahaha caught out once more, Dagon. That's not exactly what I meant. You should know that English is ambiguous. Answer me one question, do you know that the probability of an event that already happened is one? If not, you shouldn't be discussing probabilities and taking a class instead, it's literally the first thing in probability theory. To use alanschu's own example, lets say he brings a bomb with him, and let's say the probability of a bomb is 1 in 1000. The probabilty of there being two bombs planted independently would be 1 in 1000 x 1000, i.e. 1 in a million. But since alanschu already brought the first bomb, its probabilty is actually 1. So now the probability of 2 bombs is 1 in 1 x 1000, i.e. the same as probability of 1 bomb.

I leave the actual maths proofs to people better equipped than I, which would be 98% of ppl, but I'm curious about the bolded statement. Taking that statement alone, and from my idiot layperson's perspective, I'm wondering is there anything in all this math theory that claims/proves that I/we could not be the ones to see that 1 in a trillion years chance thing happen, and it's all the generations after us that won't see it? Because if not, it does sound to my uneducated ears as if you're still saying these super high odds = absolute 0. No, math doesn't talk about expectations, only probabilities. Well, if all the generations after us last for a trillion years, may be one of them will see it. I think that's longer than the universe is expected to exist though. These types of metrics between University's actually exist? Which school did you go to? Rice University

Probability theory is definitely not just about predicting what is going to happen. A quick google of the term "Probability theory" demonstrates this. An awful lot of it is analyzing random phenomenon that has already occurred. If something has already occurred, it has probability of one, but whatever, I don't want to argue about definitions. State the axiom. With a source please. An extremely low probabilty of an event makes the event functionally impossible, the source is myself. But it can be any one of a million individuals, not a specific individual. So? This is a red herring. The winning individual is within the subset of all other individuals. This winner had a probability of winning. What was it? It's not a red herring, it's the central point which you may or may not understand. Before he won, it was whatever the odds of the lottery are. After he won, it became one. The event that happened was not that a pre-determined individual won, it's that one of the entire pool of people playing won. And the odds of that are quite reasonable. You can't escape that point no matter how often you repeat yourself.

You mean an example? Which one, I don't remember any from you.

Because this notion of "pre-determined" is misleading. Unless you're just stating that the odds of predicting a winner are very low. This does not preclude the event itself from actually happening, or refute that very unlikely events can occur. Probability theory is about predicting what's going to happen, so yes, the chances of predicting a winner are very low. You then have to ask yourself whether with chances being that low, what are your expectations on being able to pick a winner? Do you think you can ever do that in your lifetime? From this point I think we're just going around in circles, since you're trying to disprove an axiom, while I'm trying to give you an intuitive feel for why the axiom is true, since an axiom can not be proven. But it can be any one of a million individuals, not a specific individual.

Fine, pick your favorite example and I'll show to you why it's bogus, if I haven't already.

That's odd, I'm fairly sure there's been numerous examples posted. Numerous bogus examples.

@Thorton Impossible for all practical purposes, like saying something will happen once every trillion years is the same as saying it will never happen, unless you're planning on living for a trillion years. Dagon, the incorrect assumption you're making is that the odds of "some person" winning is wholly independent of a "unique person" winning. In order for "some person" to win, a "unique person" must win. You have already conceded that it's not impossible for "some person" to win, but it's impossible for a "pre-determined" person to win. This "some person" is an individual. Are you claiming that this individual's chances of winning were somehow lower than a "pre-determined" person's chances of winning? Now you're just confusing me. Why not just use terms "some person" and "pre-determined person", why do you have to indroduce "individual" as opposed to "pre-determined" I'm saying a pre-detemined person (you in the last example) will not win, while "some person" has a good chance of winning. Edit: And by "some person" I mean any one of the people playing the lottery, before you ask.

That's all I was saying in that particular discussion, not in the entire thread. They're not impossible (since there's a finite probability) but for all practical purposes they will never occur. This should be axiomatic and obvious, but if it's not, then I guess it's a matter of your belief system. The only way to disprove it is to show an extremely unlikely event that actually occurred, and except for the woman winning 4 times, I'm not aware of any.

Think of it this way, you have a lot less chance of winning a lottery than that someone somewhere is going to win the lottery. That's all I'm saying.

By unique I mean pre-selected before he's won anything.

Actually octomom may have been a bad example, since I think they actually implanted 8 embryos. As far as normal women without any conditions, and if the law really holds for octuplets (like I said, I don't think it's been proven), than I'd never expect to see a normal woman have octuplets.

Try not to go off the subject, identical twins happen when a fertalized egg splits, what's so unlikely about that? Fine, two twins a bit common for you (lol)? What about octuplets. A 1 in 25 quadrillion chance (as per Hellin's Law). Are they impossible? Has anyone proved it to be true? That could hold for a woman with no unusual medical conditions, but there could be women who are more susceptible. It's known that fertility drugs greatly increase the chances (like octomom), some women may have natural conditions which do the same. The law could still hold for smaller litters, but a few women in the world with unusual conditions would greatly skew the chances at very low probabilities.

@Nightshade Because if a billion people are playing the lottery the chance of one of them winning is much greater than if a single individual is playing.