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Re: probability question about the dice game
Posted:
Feb 17, 2013 12:15 PM
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On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 10:30:41 -0800 (PST), pepstein5@gmail.com wrote:
>On Saturday, February 16, 2013 3:00:44 PM UTC, David C. Ullrich wrote:
>> On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 05:45:37 -0800 (PST), pepstein5@gmail.com wrote:
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>> >Staying with the theme of odds terminology, but moving away from the argument,
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>> Giggle. Yes, now would be exactly the right time to "move away from
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>> the argument".
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>> Guffaw.
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>
>I don't find it that hilarious. Obviously, I've been shown to be wrong about what standard usage is.
Until this last post it wasn't obvious that it was clear to _you_.
And it may not have been clear to other readers.
What quasi said. When you say "Ullrich is wrong" four or five times,
then you find that I was right all along, you're supposed to
acknowledge that fact.
For two reasons: (i) to set the record straight for the benefit
of readers who might otherwise think you were right all along,
(ii) as a matter of common courtesy.
For future reference, saying something like "this seems wrong to me",
or "I don't think so", would be less embarassing in case it turned out
you were wrong.
Also for future reference, you were insisting that what I was saying
was not standard usage. I would never insist that someone else's
usage was wrong without checking somewhere first! Just because
I know saying X is correct it doesn't follow that saying Y is wrong.
Checking it out. For most of this thread I honestly didn't
follow exactly what error you were claiming I was making.
As soon as that became clear to me I looked it up. Why?
Because I was aware that I _might_ be wrong!
Looking it up was very very easy. You could have done the same.
> When bookmakers say an event is "2 to 1" without qualifiers like "on" or "against", they mean that the probability is around 31%. I'm certainly surprised to hear people say that "The odds are 2 to 1 that it will rain" means a probability of 2/3. I wonder why no one says that the odds of winning the lottery are "one to millions"
>Anyway, it's good that you find such things humorous. It's a lot cheaper than buying a comedy DVD. As a community, mathematicians have a really terrible sense of humour in my experience.
>
>Paul Epstein
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