Little Bits of Mostly Useless Knowledge

[CornField]

All human brains carry some form of useless knowledge. So, finally put that information you've been hanging onto to work: Tell us!


Here's mine:

How many people would you have to have within a room to ensure that at least two of them share the same birthday?

23 -- statistically speaking, in every group of 23 there will be at least two people who share the same birthday.

A grade school math teacher worked out the statistical stuff for us on his chalkboard. Why this information was important enough for me to remember, I have no clue.

[Bok_Tukalo]

1. The Skipper's name was Jonas Grumby

<ope>

[BattyDem]

2. And the professor's name was ...

Roy Hinkley :)

And Mary Ann's last name was Summers.

I really hate myself for knowing so much about that stupid show, LOL! :P

[Mrs_Beastman]

3. The average person uses the the bathroom 7x a day

Won a Trival Pursuit with this guess.

[BattyDem]

7. Really? Now I'm going to have to count ...

LOL! :D

[Reverend_Smitty]

4. If you were to walk from New York to Minneapolis...

non-stop you would burn 20 pounds of fat. The only bit of information I took from my exercise physiology class

[CornField]

5. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. No, that's quite wrong

23 does not ENSURE that two people will share the same birthday. To ENSURE it would take 367 people.

I believe 23 is the number at which there is a 50% chance that any two people of the group will share a birthday.

Certainly, at the number 23, you are not automatically going to get 3 people with the same birthday.

[valis]

8. LOL... These kids have no clue about stats...

It would take one second of real thinking to realize that the "ensure" argument is ALL wrong. Why? Because there are 365 days in a year (OK, some have 366). So, you can always find 23 people with diffrent birthdays and put them in the same room. In fact, you can only be sure there will be at least 3 people with the same birthday if you put 366x2 +1 people in the same room. Any less than that you have less than 100% chance of that occurring.

[CornField]

10. Unfortunately, I'm an oldie

At least I'm old enough to take it as a compliment when the clerk asks to see my ID before selling me booze. LOL!

I made a typo... stastically, 2 out of 23 would share the same day (not three)

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. No, you're still off

23 is the point at which there is a 50% chance that two people will share the same birthday.

[valis]

16. You'd still have to take 367 people to be SURE

at least two of them share the same date of birth...

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Absolutely!

I wish that schools teach prob and stats shitloads better than they do.

Most people are fucking clueless about how to form stats, and how to read them, and about probabilities.

I just read something recently about an experiment done with people, asking them what their risk-taking level is for flying: it was at about 100,000 to one chance (or better) of having a terrorist attack on a plane that would make them not fly becuase they felt that level was too unsafe.

That probability, however, is, statistically speaking, still a better chance than of getting hurt driving, or walking, and some other regular, daily activities.

And the article didn't say it, but I bet those people who felt that 100,000 to one was to close to 100%, feel that a 300 million to one chance at the lotto is a risk that's worth taking.

People are fucking clueless.

[valis]

15. Yeah.... I also read in the NYT that when doctors say

to a patient that they have a 50% to get better by using a particular medicine, the patient thinks that means he/she will be better on 50% of the times after taking the medicine. You know, today it works, tomorrow it doesn't... Instead of realizing that 50% of PEOPLE respond to it and 50% do not respond to it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. I just can't imagine going through life willingly not understanding

such simple concepts.

Like saying "The number of abortions each year is up since Roe v. Wade was passed" to get people upset about how abortions must be on a rampage now!

Well, fuckin' duh - more than likely it's true that the numbers are up, since the US population has almost doubled since then. Of course the raw numbers are up. Give me a percentage - that's the only relevant number. The numbers could be up, but the percentage of pregnancies terminated by abortion could be way down.

(I don't know if the number of abortions are up; I just used that as an example)

[MissMillie]

9. The presidential election

of 2000 lasted longer than the entire presidency of William Henry Harrison.

[billyskank]

13. Is that the guy who

insisted on delivering his inaugural speech in a blizzard and then died of pneumonia?

[MissMillie]

14. that's the one

I think there was a pope back in the 80s that also died very shortly after being "installed" (that's probably not the right word)

[youthere]

17. 90% of statistics

are made up.

[LynneSin]

19. Proof of that: Bush administration & the shrills that support him

I swear all those states that OxyRush, InShannity & O LiesAlot are crap pulled out of their asses and hawked to be statistics

[Zuni]

20. My birthday is July 23 rd---creepy

[youthere]

21. Richard Milhouse Nixon

was the first president who's name carries all the letters for the word "criminal"-William Jefferson Clinton was the second.

The first words Edison spoke through the phonograph were "Mary Had A Little Lamb"

Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors.

If you went unprotected into deep space, you would explode before you would suffocate because there is no air pressure (or so I'm told)