These Very Unlikely Events Will Make You Stop Believing In Probability
Oct. 9 2018, Updated 10:38 p.m. ET
When I was working as a math teacher, there was one afternoon where I was working with a student on probability. I asked him what I thought was a simple question. If I roll a six-sided dice, what are the odds it will land on five? His answer was five. I tried explaining to him that only one side of the six sides says five, so the answer is one of six. We spent a solid half-hour debating whether or not the chances were one out of six or five out of six.
We discussed it for so long, I no longer know if I was right. What is important is that sometimes I see things that seem so unlikely, so improbable that I can't believe what I am seeing. I would assume that someone dropping a ball off of a bridge into a basketball hoop has a one in a billion chance of happening, but it has happened, so can it really be that uncommon? I don't even know how dice work any more!
Please send help.
These two strangers sitting next to each other on a plane.
Bread is an excellent frisbee.
You better buy a lotto ticket with those numbers!
Who's going to get that ball now?
How can someone be so good at two different sports?
Did you see that? Oh, right.
He meant to do that, right?
He's really good at hacky sack.
Way to go, Facebook algorithm.
Nice catch.
She didn't stick the landing, though.
Teamwork!
Lucky!
That face is correct.
What a twist!
C'mon! Get on, D!
The wind says you're welcome...
I gasped.
Oh, sure. Like you weren't trying to do that.
This could have ended really badly.
Now you are just showing off.
Not what you were going for. Still impressive.
I'm sure you're nice people, but also I hate you.
Huh.
She makes it look so simple.
My house. My rules. That counts.
World's greatest golfer?
How did you have so much time to practice this?
Still counts!
How was this not planned?
Ha! I get it.
If you see it with your own eyes, I guess you have to believe it, right?
