Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Bookmarks and Doomsday

Author:Dennis Peterson
Posted:8/16/2000; 7:01:03 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/13/2000
Msg #:19755 (In response to 19754)
Prev/Next:19754 / 19756

You would think...but check the link, they have a cute way of arguing it. Something like: imagine 100 rooms, numbered in sequence. There are people in either rooms 1-10, or 1-100, even odds either way. Guess which is actually the case--might as well flip a coin. Now, suppose you find out that your own room number is 7. Work out the probabilities (via Bayes' theorem they say), and the odds are 91% that there are only 10 people.

In the same way, there have been 12 billion people so far, so there's only a 9% chance that there will be a total of 120 billion people. Odd way of looking at things, doesn't seem right--on the other hand, out of 12 billion, there's a 50% chance of being alive right now, and much lower chance of being alive in any particular previous century--and here we are...

Haven't read any Stephen Baxter yet, he looks interesting.

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