Recent comments in /f/explainlikeimfive

electro-magician t1_jcth8s0 wrote

Go to bed!

I used to be able to "do it," but that was in my invincible years. You are impaired and should not operate equipment or vehicles. Your reflexes slow down and so does your ability to make decisions. Spare yourself the fatigue headache and go have a nap.

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BlueWizard3 t1_jctdj3e wrote

Depends. I’ve heard (and don’t quote me on this) that if your aim is to reset your sleep schedule, you should wait until the following night and go to bed at a specific time.

Otherwise, if I have work or something that needs my full, awake attention, I’d take a nap but NOT sleep a full 8 hours in the middle of the day because that would mess up my sleep schedule.

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Chromotron t1_jaf4qnb wrote

You are confusing thought experiments with reality. A thought experiment is under strict specific assumptions; it does not matter if reality looks different or this cannot actually be.

For example: "if I flip a coin once a second for all eternity, I will get heads at least once"; humans not living for eternity, the coin very slowly ablating away, the sun possibly swallowing Earth some day, or everything being turned into paperclips by a rogue AI don't matter and are not viable scenarios for this. They are idealized away, ignored.

They are usually done to either explore and understand some concept, or to show effects (paradoxical or not) of extreme settings, or are just a kind of game for its own sake. Like a science fiction book.

> Over an infinite period of time the probability of the universe ending is 1, right?

There is no physical reason for this to be so. It might be, but we are definitely not certain about it nor the opposite.

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Mikiemax80 OP t1_jaf4nbw wrote

Ok, thanks for your reply. I understand how you explained it and it’s very similar to the previous poster’s comparison of a bounded vs infinite set.

Also I definitely don’t want to live forever cos I don’t want to be hit by a train 😂

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DiscussTek t1_jaf4l4q wrote

This premise, especially given then examples in the body, is not even what we mean when we talk about a probability becoming 1 given infinite time.

In mathemathics, a 0 multiplied by anything, usually only results to 0, so for this fact to be true, there has to be at least some chance of it to happen.

This complete issue with your question being resolved, let's talk about probabilities. When calculating the probabilty of an event X to happen after a given amount of "tries", it is much easier to talk in terms of "how likely is it not to happen." as it is just shorter math to the same result.

When testing twice for a same probability, given you're only trying to get it to happen once, you multiply the odds of it by themselves. So, if something had a 10% chance to happen, it has a 90% chance not to happen, and when you try twice, it's 0.9 x 0.9, which is 0.81. It is lower than the original odds. If you try three times, for it not to happen at all would be 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9, which is 0.729.

Then, to get the odds of it happening once, you get 1 - [the odds of it not happening]. Using my example, the odds of it happening once in two tries is then 0.19, or in three tries, it would be 0.271.

This trend of it getting lower and lower is what gets the odds of it never happening infinitely closer to 0, and thus the odds of it happening, given it has a chance to happen, AND infinite time, is always virtually 1.

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ThoughtfulPoster t1_jaf407p wrote

You're absolutely right! There's something called the "Kolmogorov Zero-One Law" that says "the probability of something always happening again is either 100% or 0%". But usually, what people mean by this is that anything where the probability of it happening on any given day is some minimum nonzero amount (or a probability that goes to zero, but slowly enough that the probabilities add up over time), then it's going to happen eventually with probability 1.

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markovianprocess t1_jaf3ke0 wrote

Yeah, "Charbucks" dark roast espressos are good for standing up to lattes and other drinks that are 90% milk. Real espresso aficionados/3rd Wave coffee snobs tend to prefer lighter roasts.

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MidnightAtHighSpeed t1_jaf3k9i wrote

You are correct. When people say that the probability of a random event approaches 1 over time, it's usually under the assumption that probability is constant. For flipping a coin, assuming a constant probability for "heads" every flip is reasonable. For a person, assuming a constant rate of train-death every year is not reasonable because, as you point out, various things will affect your probability of getting killed by a train, such as "whether you're alive," that change over time.

>Over an infinite period of time the probability of the universe ending is 1, right? Does that not invalidate every mathematical assumption that the probability of [any event] occurring over an infinite span of time is 1.

The first question is a physics question that we don't really have an answer to. Even if it's true, that just means that there will almost certainly be a finite lifespan of the universe, meaning there's no infinite time span for the relevant event anyway. More to the point, math, including probability, will always be at best an approximation of reality. You generally can't assume you'll actually run into infinite anything, but there are situations in which you have so much of something (such as trials of a random event) that you can expect it to behave more or less like the infinite case (such as giving a very, very high probability of eventual success), so doing math about infinite cases can still sometimes serve a practical purpose.

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its-a-throw-away_ t1_jaf3amh wrote

By adding constraints such as human lifespan, you change the calculation from an infinite set to a bounded set, which means you are now working with a different problem.

Given a non-zero event probability, as the set size approaches infinity the probability of a single occurrence within the set approaches 1.

Measuring the probability that an event will occur in a single test is different than measuring the probability that an event will occur in a set of tests. Even though the latter depends on the former, you're measuring separate probabilities because the former does not depend on the number of tests performed.

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JayMoots t1_jaf38ji wrote

This is already happening in NYC.

There are two chains -- one is called Matto and the other is Blank Street Coffee. They're both undercutting Starbucks on price significantly, and they both suddenly have locations EVERYWHERE.

Matto is especially cheap -- their gimmick is that every drink is $2.50. Doesn't matter if it's an espresso drink or a drip coffee or a flavored latte or whatever -- it's $2.50.

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azuth89 t1_jaf37s8 wrote

Well...yes. Because if intervening factors occur you're measuring the probability it will happen over the span of time until that intervention occurs, not infinite time.

Basically any time you start hearing "infinite" thrown around you're probably in a purely theoretical scenario with a conspicuous lack of limits or z-factors.

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spudmix t1_jaf2zn0 wrote

This isn't actually strictly true. There's a tricky bit of math involved here, the idea of "certainty". If something is "certain" then we know that it will definitely happen. If something is "not certain" then there is a chance it won't happen, even if that chance is very small. If something is "almost certain" then we know that something will happen if we try infinitely many times.

If I flip a coin once, then I am not certain if it will land on heads at least once.

If I flip a coin a very very large number of times (like a billion) I am still not certain that it will land on heads at least once. That is because there is still a chance that I flip all-tails.

I I flip a coin an infinite number of times then I am almost certain that it will land on heads at least once. This is because in an infinite number of coin flips, the chance of all-tails becomes zero. We are "almost certain" that we will eventually flip a heads, but we are not "certain".

But here's the catch: it is not possible in reality to flip a coin infinitely many times, therefore in reality there is no way for a 100% chance of all-tails to happen. It can get very very very close to 100% but it will never be 100%.

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Chaotic_Lemming t1_jaf2ud5 wrote

Imagine you have a dice with 1 million sides. Your chance of rolling 123,456 is 1 in 1 million, or 0.0001%. You start rolling the dice once a day. Each day the chance the dice will land on 123,456 is 1 in 1 million. That doesn't change day to day. Now lets fast forward in time 10 million days. You've rolled the dice 10 million times. Each individual roll was still a super tiny chance. But the odds that you won't have landed on 123,456 in those 10 million roles is approximately 0.0045%. (0.999999^10,000,000)

There is still a chance that you won't have rolled a 123,456 but it is very small.

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