At 08:27 14/04/2011 +0100, Moore, Robert wrote:
>Helping my grandchildren clear up last weekend I collected six assorted
>dice and tossed them into the games box. The dice landed 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
>This looked like a quite remarkable outcome and my immediate thought was
>that there must be huge odds against this. But is the outcome of this
>throw any more or less likely than any other?
As I'm sure you know, no, it is no more or less likely than any other outcome.
This is, in fact, the very technique I use to try to make people (who think
they may win!) realise how unlikely it is that they would win the
Lottery. First of all, I get them to understand and agree the point that
'random' means that ANY Lottery 'set of numbers' is equally likely to come
out of the machine. Most seem to find it quite easy to agree with that.
I then ask them how likely they think it is that the Lottery draw would
result in (1,2,3,4,5,6) and they generally say something along the lines of
"virtually impossible". It then ought not to be too difficult (although
some can resist!) to get them to realise that it is therefore equally
'virtually impossible' _their_ choice of 6 numbers will win!
However, I bet you couldn't do it again :-)
Kind Regards,
John
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