Civil Liberties

[Max Sawicky]

I don't think so.  YOu're thinking of an experiment
that would go like this -- a very large urn has a
million balls in it, all but one white.  If you
draw all the balls, obviously one of them will
be white.  But if you draw and replace, then in
each draw your chances of coming up white are
still one in a million.  So your premise depends
on the trials being dependent on each other. Each
null result increases the likelihood of a non-null
result subsequently.  So it depends on exactly what
we're talking about, which I have forgotten.

mbs

Yes. This is tricky, but probability, as I understand it, is not really
a matter of prediction. So what we are talking about is a situation not
before the millionth & one roll of the dice but _after_ all 1 million
and one rolls have occurred, and we know the results of NONE of the
rolls. What is the probability that when we open the record books to
check on what has happened that someplace in that record a roll of five
has occurred.

Carrol