A question for the mathematicians on this site

[iNcog]

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[gibson]

Just because an event has 0 probability doesn't mean its impossible. For example if you spin a wheel that has every real number on it(so an infinite amount of numbers) there's 0 chance for it to land on any individual number, and yet it still lands on a number.

no, the chance would be 1/infinity which is more than 0

1/infinity isnt anything so no its not more than 0 anymore than 1/egg is greater than 0. Edit: also go back and look at the link jerom posted that I just noticed.

[iNcog]

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[gibson]

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Just because an event has 0 probability doesn't mean its impossible. For example if you spin a wheel that has every real number on it(so an infinite amount of numbers) there's 0 chance for it to land on any individual number, and yet it still lands on a number.

no, the chance would be 1/infinity which is more than 0

1/infinity isnt anything so no its not more than 0 anymore than 1/egg is greater than 0.

infinity isn't real but eggs are though! gotta be careful. math is absolutely unforgiving. 1/egg could be real

But is 1/egg>0

[Jam]

You can't because the bar will close first before you reach infinity.

[gibson]

or you will die from alcohol poisoning

[harcha]

1/infinity is still greater than 0/infinity @gibson

[Kaiserklein]

I didn't read much in this thread. But anyway, you can't divide by zero, but if you could, the result would be infinity. Just like you can't divide by "infinity" (so here, 1/whatever^n, where n is the infinite amount of times) but the result would be 0. So in terms of maths it doesn't work because you can't calculate with these numbers anyway. But it does tend towards 0 as n grows bigger obviously.

It's more about common sense. Is it possible to repeat the experiment an infinite amount of times? I guess that would mean you could also do it one more time than the infinity, which makes no sense, so no you can't. And anyway if you somehow "could", the probability would be 0 I guess.

However, there is a probability you win any amount of shots, no matter how large

[harcha]

@Kaiserklein no, there is probabilty that you win any number times 4 shots

[Kaiserklein]

Just because an event has 0 probability doesn't mean its impossible. For example if you spin a wheel that has every real number on it(so an infinite amount of numbers) there's 0 chance for it to land on any individual number, and yet it still lands on a number.

But that wheel cannot exist because it can't contain an infinity of numbers. Again back to the point that infinity just isn't a number, it doesn't "exist" in maths, you can only tend towards it.

[Kaiserklein]

@Kaiserklein no, there is probabilty that you win any number times 4 shots

I knew someone would nitpick about that but I couldn't bother as it's an irrelevant point

[Kaiserklein]

Yes. In maths 1/infinite is 0.

That's not 0, but undefined. You're taking a shortcut, we're not allowed to divide by infinity in maths. Or to use infinity in any calculus for that matter. There's a reason why we bother writing "1/n tends towards 0 as n tends towards infinity" or whatever.

[gamevideo113]

This thread got ugly real quick

[fightinfrenchman]

This thread got ugly real quick

And people say my threads are bad

[gibson]

Just because an event has 0 probability doesn't mean its impossible. For example if you spin a wheel that has every real number on it(so an infinite amount of numbers) there's 0 chance for it to land on any individual number, and yet it still lands on a number.

But that wheel cannot exist because it can't contain an infinity of numbers. Again back to the point that infinity just isn't a number, it doesn't "exist" in maths, you can only tend towards it.

Yea but the assumption in this thread is that infinity is actually something achievable( even though it's obviously not) otherwise there's no point to the entire thread.

[gibson]

1/infinity is still greater than 0/infinity @gibson

that statement is absurd

[Djigit]

Yes. In maths 1/infinite is 0.

That's not 0, but undefined. You're taking a shortcut, we're not allowed to divide by infinity in maths. Or to use infinity in any calculus for that matter. There's a reason why we bother writing "1/n tends towards 0 as n tends towards infinity" or whatever.

Exactly!

If you calculate 1/16 * 1/16 * 1/16 * 1/16 ..... doesn't that equal 0? Doesn't that mean there is a chance of 0 to actually win an infinite amount of shots

As Princeofcarthage, harcha and Kaiser said, what we have here is a horizontal asymptote. The function tends towards 0 but never reaches 0 when x is infinitely large. However, the limit of the function does reach 0.
That's precisely what that guy in the quora link says as well.


In English this translates into: "it's near impossible to get an infinite number of successive shots."

[oats13]

People get hung up on these things because they go down separate paths without realising that different answers can exist in parenthesis until another event happens.

Obviously every time you re-spin you have 1/16, at the time of the spin so in that 'practical path' you have a probability tending towards infinity, if you place your theoretical position before the events have happened then in the 'theoretical path' then- lim n->inf (1/16^n) = 0.

Both these approaches are true in parenthesis until the event occurs which ends the series i.e. you don't spin the desired outcome and the bubbles burst and you have a greasy puddle of real numbers left over.

[evilcheadar]

1/infinity—>0

[harcha]

1/infinity is still greater than 0/infinity @gibson

that statement is absurd

it is completely logical

[Goodspeed]

You start using infinity in calculations you're going to run into paradoxes. That's why it isn't a number and you can't treat it as such.

[princeofcarthage]

Infinity is a concept, something larger than defined. Of course if you take literal meaning none of the above discussion makes sense, but if you take it practically as in can I get 4 shots + re-spin endless times till time itself ends? or can a dice every time roll 1? It would probably be more practical and logical

[gibson]

1/infinity is still greater than 0/infinity @gibson

that statement is absurd

it is completely logical

Yes cause saying that a number divided by a non number is greater than another number divided by a non number is always completely logical. It makes absolutely 0 sense to say 0/infinity in the first place, just say 0 lol.

[iNcog]

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[Jam]

0/infinity = nothing/more than everything