Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
We don't bite newbies here... much
 
PerlMonks  

comment on

( [id://3333]=superdoc: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??
I have to calculate possibilities like 1/10^100.

Hm. Odds that small are so close to zero as to be meaningless.

There are estimated to be 10^80 atoms in the universe. If one of them had gone missing (or an extra one had materialised into existance) at some point after matter crystallised out of the big bang, the affect the absence or presence of that one atom would have had on the form of the universe would be undetectable at any scale.

And the affect that a 1/10^100 change in probability will have (on anything) is 100 million trillion times less significant.

To try and put that into perspective. If a casino dice had 1/10^100 bias, it would undetectable by any mechanism. I would guess that every single dice ever produced has been, is, and always will be biased billions of times more significantly. A single missing electron from the face of the dice will bias it far more significantly than that.

Indeed, the bias of every dice ever made probably varies by bllions of times more than that, second by second, due to moisture absorption, evaporation or radioactive decay.

If every human being that ever existed, threw every dice that ever existed, once every microsecond, for their entire lives and you managed to record every single throw, you would not be able to detect if such a rare event had occurred or not.

So what is the point of knowing such probabilities? Even knowing that they are not zero is useless information.


Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

In reply to Re^3: Loaded die by BrowserUk
in thread Loaded die by Microcebus

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post; it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
    <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>
  • Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
  • Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.
Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others browsing the Monastery: (6)
As of 2024-04-23 21:06 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found