• Smokeydope@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    21 days ago

    Very weird fun fact about arrows/darts and statistics, theres 0% chance of hitting an exact bullseye. You can hit it its possible to throw a perfect bullseye. It just has a probability of zero when mathematically analyzed due to being an infinitesimally small point. Sound like I’m making shit up? Here’s the sauce

    How can an outcome both be entirely possible and have 0% probability?

    Q.E.D

    • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      21 days ago

      Key word here is “infinitesimally.” Of course if you’re calculating the odds of hitting something infinitesimally small you’re going to get 0. That’s just the nature of infinities. It is impossible to hit an infinitesimally small point, but that’s not what a human considers to be a “perfect bullseye.” There’s no paradox here.

      • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        20 days ago

        Also the circumference of the dart tip is not infinitesimally small, so theres a definite chance of it overlapping the ‘perfect bullseye’ by hitting any number of nearby points.