Learning Probability Makes You See The World Differently

Probabilities that seem negligibly small can compound to become likely. If you flip a fair coin 10 times and repeat the experiment 3600 times over an afternoon, getting all heads is basically guaranteed to happen at some point.

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Learning probability really makes you see the world differently.

One of the most interesting takeaways: probabilities that seem negligibly low can compound and become likely.

For instance: If you flip a fair coin 10 times in a row, what’s the probability of getting all heads?

It’s (0.5)^10, which is less than 0.1%. So basically it’s never gonna happen, right?

Well…

Let’s say you spend a few hours doing nothing but coin flips. One flip every 3 seconds. 20 flips per minute. 1200 flips per hour. Let’s say you do this for 3 hours. 3600 flips total.

Just code it up really quick.

import random
heads = 0
for _ in range(3600):
    if random.randint(0,1) == 1:
        heads += 1
    else:
        heads = 0
    if heads == 10:
        print('10 heads in a row!')

Run that code a few times. The results might shock you.

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