Tell me a random fact about the world, I want to learn something new.

Where in the world can you watch the sun rise up from the Pacific Ocean and set into the Atlantic? Panama.

Slomodave wrote:

I don't thinks so. I agree with you that the probability would change - and have no idea whether the initial probability is even accurate. But by your math there will come a time some twenty or so centuries from now when the chance of survival is less than 1%. This may indeed be so, but not based on any initial conditions hypothesized at this time, and mathematically extrapolated into the future.

OK, so you are probably trolling but what the heck.

Forgetting about who makes up this 19% chance of extinction in the next 100 years or how such a number might change over time we have a very basic, very simple mathematical model here.

A) If the chance of extinction is 20% (to use a rounder number) in the next 100 years at any given point in time in which there is a non-zero starting human population then there is an 80% that humans will not be extinct 100 years from now.

Do you dispute A) ?

B) If humans are to make it to 200 years from now then they certainly must make it to 100 years from now first.

Do you dispute B) ?

C) There is (given the 20% each 100 years assumption) an 80% chance that humans make it to 100 years from now. Therefore there is an 80% of this 80% (= 64%) chance that they make it to 200 years from now (also a 20% chance that they do not make it 100 years and a 20% of 80% (= 16%) chance that they go extinct sometime during the 2nd century from now). Note that these percentages add up to 100% (64 + 20 + 16).

Do you dispute any of C) ?

D) We can continue this ad infinitum where the percentage chance that humans will go extinct in any given century from now (n) is given by:

[0.8 ^ (n-1)] * 0.2

and the probability that humans will not be extinct after n hundred years is given by 0.8 ^ n.

Do you dispute D) ?

E) Thus, if you go out far enough (21 centuries) you get to a point where the probability that humans are still surviving is less than 1% since 0.8 ^ 21 = .0092 or 0.92%

Do you dispute E) ?

One final question that must be asked. If you do indeed dispute any of A) thru E) is your name Flagpole by any chance?

corn or maize is an invention, created when Indigenous populations in Mexico hybridized the tripsacum and teosinte plants (two natives grasses in southern Mexico. It is estimated that this process happened about 7,000 years ago and that it took about 1,000 years to develop what we now know as corn.

One of the most important "inventions" in terms of nutrition for humanity.

Noddy The Berserker wrote:

Bud, the Old Testament is more than just the Torah, which is the first five books. He was read a passage from Daniel.

Daniel is one of the books of the Bible, therefore I said "a passage/prophecy from the Bible". It doesn't matter that the Persian holy men didn't say "Hey Alexander we're going to read you a passage from The Bible cause you're such a badass", we today think of Daniel as part of the Bible.

You mad cause people don't read prophecies about you to you?

True, the Old Testament is more than just the Torah, but I was simplifying (the Old Testament is a selected collection of Jewish scripture that the various Christian councils eventually agreed to include in the middle ages, just as the New Testament is a selected collection of Christian scripture that the same various councils agreed to include).

I'm not mad. I was correcting a statement that the Bible existed more than 300 years before Christianity began. I'm sorry if you took offense.

Dingbat wrote:

Where in the world can you watch the sun rise up from the Pacific Ocean and set into the Atlantic? Panama.

So that would basically be repeating what the guy on the previous page said?

Ayn Rand was correct.

Mohammed wrote:

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

??? February 1999 didn't have a full moon.

Martin van Buren was the only US President who did not speak English as his first language.

I didn't say the Bible existed more than 300 years before Christianity began, I said/meant Alexander was read a passage from the Bible but since we don't live before the time of Christ, I said Bible, instead of Daniel, which would have been more correct to your refined/sensitive tastes.

But it's no big deal, I think we're all a little rattled cause Alexander was such a badass.

Maine shares a border with one state. It is the only state that does.

I dispute C. The original hypothesis is a 19% chance of extinction over ANY 100 year period (or 81% chance of survival). It does not increase (or decrease) every 100 years because it didn't happen the previous 100 years.

There is be a certain percentage chance today that you will be in a car accident. If you are not, it will NOT increase the chance of you being in one tomorrow.

One final question for you. Why do you insult those who disagree with you?

One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet.

To answer your question first, I am not insulting anybody - unless you consider comparisons to a certain letsrun poster to be insulting. Many on these boards apparently would consider it flattering. But to each his own.

Now on to C). You seem to be entirely missing the point (no, this is not meant as an insult, just a statement of the current state of understanding).

Let's use your example: There is be a certain percentage chance today that you will be in a car accident. If you are not, it will NOT increase the chance of you being in one tomorrow. -- That is certainly true. And nobody ever said anything toward that effect on this thread.

The point it that there is some chance that you will be in a car accident today. There is some chance that you will be in a car accident tomorrow. Surely there is a better chance that you will be in a car accident at least one of these two days than there is that you will be in a car accident specifically today. Otherwise you are saying that there is zero chance that you will be in an accident tomorrow.

Let's use 10% (even though it is [hopefully] much higher than the actual chance) for the probability that you will be in a car accident on any given day. And let's look at two days, today and tomorrow.

There is a 10% chance that you will be in a car accident today.

There is a 10% chance that you will be in a car accident tomorrow.

There is a 1% chance that you will be in a car accident today AND in a car accident tomorrow (assume independence for simplicity). This 1% is simply 10% x 10% - the chance that BOTH of these events happen.

There is a 90% chance that you will NOT be in a car accident today.

There is a 90% chance that you will NOT be in a car accident tomorrow.

There is an 81% chance that you will NOT be in a car accident on either day. This 81% is simply 90% x 90% - the chance that BOTH accident-free days occur.

If you extend this for three days the chance that you will NOT have any car accidents for three consecutive days is 90% x 90% x 90% = 73%.

If you extend this for N days then the chance that you will NOT have any car accidents for N days in a row is 90% ^ N. And if you make N large enough, the chances that you will not have any car accidents becomes vanishingly small. This, of course, comports with common sense - eventually you will be in a car accident (especially if you are reckless enough to have a 10% chance on any given day!).

In particular, the chances that you will be in at least one accident after 22 days is over 90% (since 90% ^ 22 < 10%) And the chances you will be in at least one accident after 44 days is over 99%!

Note that the fact that you did not have an accident today does not affect the chances that you will have one tomorrow (just as with the extinction question). However, the chances that you will have at least one accident is, of course, greater for longer time periods (just as the chance of extinction is greater over the course of 300 years than it is over just 100 years).

Dingbat wrote:

Where in the world can you watch the sun rise up from the Pacific Ocean and set into the Atlantic? Panama.

You could do this in the US as well (or in any country where at least one piece of land on each coast juts into the ocean so that the Pacific visible to someone looking east and the Atlantic visible to someone looking west). For example, you can watch the sun rise over the Pacific from Santa Barbara (based on the Google Map, you can stand at Shoreline Park and look directly East over the pacific. You could then watch the sun set into the Atlantic from any number of little islands in the Atlantic or from various points on Cape Cod.

In Cambodia, the Tonle Sap River flows northward for about half the year, and southward the rest of the time.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

trailrunner68 wrote:

trailrunner68 wrote:

There's something unique about this number:

8,549,176,320

What is it ?

bump

It is a number that has ever number 0-9 in it in alphabetical order.

Random fact: Tom Brady's winning percentage as an NFL quarterback in .781, the highest ever in NFL history. He's also won the most postseason NFL games of any quarterback in history. :)

China has at least 90 cities with populations of one million or larger.