what are the odds?
This happened to me about 10 years ago, and I've always wondered about the odds of it happening. Now, with the power of poker and hundreds of powerful minds, I think I may get to the answer.
One morning for no apparent reason I start humming "please release me let me go...I don't love you anymore", a find Engelbert Humperdink song. It's one of those stick in your head all day things. I come home turn on the television and that very instant, not a second more or less, Cheers is on and the gang is singing "please release me let me go...".
How the heck do you figure the odds of that happening?
Here's my thoughts. In a day, how many possible songs will have that effect? I'm thinking something like 1 in a 1000? P(Song in head)
Then what are the odds of a song being on a TV Show? Say in any given year there are approximately 10,000 shows. Total songs in shows 100. So odds of a song in a partcular episode is 1 in a 1000. P(Song in Show)
Then what is the sample size for that song. Say 100,000 songs to choose from. So the odds of a particular song in a show is P(song in SHow) * P(particular song) or 100,000,000.
Now what are the odds of that parcticular show being on at that time. Probably something like a sample of 100,000 episodes could be shown at a particular time. P(Show at time).
What are the odds that the timing of the show will be on sequence. Say 30 minutes * 60 seconds or 1800 possibililties -- 1 in 1800. P(correct sequence)
So the grand total is
P(Song in head) * PSong in Show) * P(particular song) * P(show at time) * P(correct sequence)
1000 * 1000 * 100000 * 100000 * 1800 or 18,000 trillion to 1.
Seems a bit large.
Cheers
Magi
One morning for no apparent reason I start humming "please release me let me go...I don't love you anymore", a find Engelbert Humperdink song. It's one of those stick in your head all day things. I come home turn on the television and that very instant, not a second more or less, Cheers is on and the gang is singing "please release me let me go...".
How the heck do you figure the odds of that happening?
Here's my thoughts. In a day, how many possible songs will have that effect? I'm thinking something like 1 in a 1000? P(Song in head)
Then what are the odds of a song being on a TV Show? Say in any given year there are approximately 10,000 shows. Total songs in shows 100. So odds of a song in a partcular episode is 1 in a 1000. P(Song in Show)
Then what is the sample size for that song. Say 100,000 songs to choose from. So the odds of a particular song in a show is P(song in SHow) * P(particular song) or 100,000,000.
Now what are the odds of that parcticular show being on at that time. Probably something like a sample of 100,000 episodes could be shown at a particular time. P(Show at time).
What are the odds that the timing of the show will be on sequence. Say 30 minutes * 60 seconds or 1800 possibililties -- 1 in 1800. P(correct sequence)
So the grand total is
P(Song in head) * PSong in Show) * P(particular song) * P(show at time) * P(correct sequence)
1000 * 1000 * 100000 * 100000 * 1800 or 18,000 trillion to 1.
Seems a bit large.
Cheers
Magi
Comments
Hmmm... kind of like the third Royal FLush in a day during online play?
Cheers
Magi
In actual fact, there were 9 seats up for grabs, so the odds were 8:1 against, I guess...