On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 3:45 PM, Deepa Mohan <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Landon Hurley <[email protected]> > wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA512 > > > > However, I am interested in how you ameliorate the paradox between the > > probability of rolling a one is .5, i.e. half of the N times you role a > > die, you will come up with a 1, and the empirical fact that a you role a > > large N, you come up with a number that approximates 16.66 out of a 100 > > occurrences of 1. > > > > No, I am not able to treat it as a series of occurrences. Each is one > event...that may or may not occur. It's very difficult to explain > something that is patently nonsensical to everyone else, but which I > am unable to shake myself out of. > "Probability" as used in regular conversation is a very different (and more poorly defined) beast than what is referred to by the mathematical concept of probability. That is the root of your problem, Deepa. You are trying to fit Landon's attempt to describe the mathematical probability to your understanding of a loosely defined "colloquial probability". Your difficulty is akin to difficulty in understanding or visualising the mathematical "Point" - an infinitely small entity of 0 size, but that - due to matters of practical limitations - has to be represented by a large blob of chalk on the black board and visualized by everyone as such. The existence of these two "Probabilities" also points to the real problem in front of Udhay - which meaning of probability do you want to shine light on for your child? -Karra
