Re: [asa] The Patient Creator

From: Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
Date: Sun Jun 21 2009 - 17:23:51 EDT

David Clounch wrote:

D:  "Correct.  Now,  suppose I tell you the probability of being red is 0.0000000001.  Now how many red balls are in the room?"

J:  "Zero." 

D:  "That is correct.  But Why?"

J:   "Because you can't have a fraction of a ball  and still have it be a ball.  To have one red ball you would need a sample size of  10000000000  balls. 

That's interesting.  As soon as you switched to such a small probability I immediately assumed (likely erroneously) that the hundred balls in the room were selected randomly from a population of 10000000000 balls of which one is red.  Thus I would have answered not Zero but probably zero and in actual fact I don't know.

Dave W
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