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shakowtoday at 5:02 PM2 repliesview on HN

Even if you shoot only once, you still have a higher chance of hitting something slightly off the middle than the perfect 100/100. And this because that's one point-precise result (100/100) vs. a cumulated range of individually less-probable results, but more probable when taken as a whole.

For a fair coin, hitting 100/100 is ~5%, vs. ~30% falling in [97; 103] \ {100}. You can simulate here: https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/coin-flip-probabil...


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tshaddoxtoday at 5:17 PM

> you still have a higher chance of hitting something slightly off the middle than the perfect 100/100

That's because "something slightly off the middle" is a large group of possible results. Of course you can assemble a group of possible results that has a higher likelihood than a single result (even the most likely single result!). But you could make the same argument for any single result, including one of the results in your "slightly off the middle" group. Did you get 97 heads? Well you'd have a higher likelihood of getting between 98 and 103 heads. In fact, for any result you get, it would have been more likely to get some other result! :D

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e12etoday at 7:05 PM

Should that be 25% for 97..193 excluding 100?

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