Science Memes

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Percentages (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 3 weeks ago (25 children)

Having two possible outcomes does not mean it's a 50:50 chance.

"So if I aim the arrow at the 1cm square from 100m away and shoot, I either hit it or I don't. So basically I have a 50% chance of hitting it."

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (7 children)

Very weird fun fact about arrows/darts and statistics, theres 0% chance of hitting an exact bullseye. You can hit it its possible to throw a perfect bullseye. It just has a probability of zero when mathematically analyzed due to being an infinitesimally small point. Sound like I'm making shit up? Here's the sauce

How can an outcome both be entirely possible and have 0% probability?

Q.E.D

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Key word here is "infinitesimally." Of course if you're calculating the odds of hitting something infinitesimally small you're going to get 0. That's just the nature of infinities. It is impossible to hit an infinitesimally small point, but that's not what a human considers to be a "perfect bullseye." There's no paradox here.