| Title: | Mathematics at DEC |
| Moderator: | RUSURE::EDP |
| Created: | Mon Feb 03 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 2083 |
| Total number of notes: | 14613 |
(Posted to MATH and ASKENET)
Wild coincidences seem to occur more often that 'common sense'
indicates that they should. For example:
At a show in Disneyworld we discover that the people at the next
table live in the house that we lived in (in Mass). We had not met
them before. Two months later one of them starts work at DEC in
the next office to me.
While walking through Muir woods near San Francisco we meet a
friend from DEC Germany.
(When we lived in England). On visiting the National Theatre in
London we are sat in front of couple that we met the previous week
on vacation in Italy.
A couple of weeks later we run into another couple from the same
vacation (who did not live in the same town as us, but from the
general wider area).
etc.
Do other people run into the same sort of coincidences ?
Are they in fact such wild coincidences? If you run the probability
numbers would you expect some of these 'wild coincidences' every few
years ?
Tim
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 711.1 | Yes, they happen to us all. | AKQJ10::YARBROUGH | Why is computing so labor intensive? | Wed Jun 03 1987 13:27 | 21 |
The existence of such apparently wild events is the basis for a lot of belief in ESP, etc. and has been the target of a substantial amount of analysis. The magazine, "The Skeptical Inquirer", which has been mentioned in Scientific American and other places, has dealt with this issue. I have observed that about every 4th or 5th time I go to any airport, I run into someone whom I know but didn't expect to see. It's especially true of Logan, but I have run into a friend from Philadelphia in a Chicago airport, when I was on a trip from LA, etc. This doesn't count TV stars and other highly visible people whom I recognize but don't know, and who seem to frequent airports as often as taxi drivers do. I think I know exactly one (1) Naval officer. It turns out he is the Captain of the USS Stark, which is in the news a lot this week. The thing that is scary about such events is that we NOTICE them, in preference to the tens of thousands of non-eventful things that happen every day. Since our attention is drawn to them, they seem more frequent than they really are. Lynn Yarbrough | |||||
| 711.2 | I agree with .1 | EAGLE1::BEST | R D Best, Systems architecture, I/O | Wed Jun 03 1987 20:06 | 23 |
I agree with .1. Coincidences are simply events that have some particular significance to us and are primarily a result of selective perception. You may have heard of the 'poker hand' experiment that's designed to convince people of the power of selective perception. The experiment is this: If you play poker (an analogous thing can be done with bridge), deal yourself a hand and record the suit and rank of each card in the hand. Every time you play, watch for an occurrence of that particular hand. Chances are good that you'll never see that hand again. The point is that each hand is a low probability event. That is, the a priori probability of drawing that particular hand is the same as every other hand. Because we distinguish certain hands as 'special' (e.g. a royal flush in hearts), there is a psychological tendency to feel that the 'special' hand is particularly surprising. I don't find people coincidences too surprising given the fact that most people I know are quite similar to me. We therefore have a tendency to travel in similar circles and do similar things (e.g. going to Disneyworld; just about everybody I know has been to Disneyworld in the last four or five years). | |||||
| 711.3 | Fancy not meeting you here! | KIRK::KOLKER | Wed Jun 03 1987 21:21 | 5 | |
Think about all those unfortunate blokes who don't run into ex
neighbors will hiking thru East Armpit, etc, etc.. These non
coincidences balance out the coincidences and overall you get about
what probabilities dictate.
a
| |||||
| 711.4 | You are statistics | TAV02::NITSAN | Duvdevani, DEC Israel | Thu Jun 11 1987 08:43 | 8 |
Re.1: I agree completely, but I read one more "strange" explanation: If (say) you let one guy guess a sequence of cards given to another (as done in ESP tests) probability predicts the expected number of correct guesses. The same probability theory says that if you do the whole test many times on many people - in SOME cases you should get results better than the expected... | |||||