Information Science | Statistics
A have a look at the counterintuitive arithmetic of shared birthdays
Water cooler small discuss is a particular sort of small discuss, sometimes noticed in workplace areas round a water cooler. There, staff incessantly share every kind of company gossip, myths, and legends, inaccurate scientific opinions, indiscreet private anecdotes, or outright lies. Something goes. So, in my Water Cooler Small Discuss posts, I talk about unusual and normally scientifically invalid opinions I’ve overheard within the workplace which have actually left me speechless.
Right here’s the water cooler opinion of at present’s publish:
I work in an workplace flooring with 60+ individuals, and final week two of them had their birthdays on the identical day. Realizing they shared their birthday, they’d a dialog someplace alongside the next traces:
– I can not imagine we now have our birthdays on the identical day!
– Sure, what are the possibilities?
..and everybody commented on how unusual it was. A loopy, karmic coincidence…
🌌🥳
However for actual, what are the possibilities? With a fast estimation, one might imagine that the probabilities of such an occasion must be very low…