Quotes About Probability

He didn't seem out of breath in the slightest. 'I had this flash of insight into how I could modify the iterations of the immediate probability space. It's like that game children play where they set up a complicated arrangement of. . . ' He frowned. 'You know, those little plaques with spots on them that you play a game with. Just don't expect me to be able to do it on demand. Or ever again, it seems. Oh, well.' Behind

Worry predictions aren't based on what's likely to happen. They're based on what would be terrible if it did happen. They're not based on probability—they're based on fear.

It can be difficult to accept the fact that a lot of birds have to be identified as "possible" or "probable.

Take out all but one bullet and it was Russian Roulette. In Mexican Roulette, as he'd heard it defined, you took out only one. In Drunk Mexican Roulette you didn't take out any.

statistical laws are not necessarily used as a result of our ignorance. statistical laws can reflect how things really are. there are matters that can only be treated statistically.

this determinism says that in every case the result is determined by the previous condition of the subject we are looking at. Our free will at the best is like that of Lucretius's atoms — which at quite uncertain times and places deviate in an uncertain manner from their course. the atoms can swerve so there's always the small possibility even for air molecules of not being forced to follow the determined laws. - ESSAY FOR THE ERANUS CLUB ON SCIENCE AND FREE WILL

Math is not bias, racist or politically motivated the numbers are either in your favor or there not

Don, a CPA, kept a log of the first 100 horses that had been touted by insiders as ready to win and absolutely good things. Exactly six had won. We could have done as well by consulting a table of random numbers.

In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere.

as Aristotle might say, it is an improbable-possible.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks.

The light works, he said, indicating the window, the gravity works, he said, dropping a pencil on the floor. Anything else we have to take our chances with.

You know,' he said, sitting back, reflectively, 'it's at times like this that you kind of wonder if it's worth worrying about the fabric of space-time and the causal integrity of the multidimensional probability matrix and the potential collapse of all waveforms in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash and all that sort of stuff that's been bugging me.

when we get down to the subatomic level, the solid world we live in also consists, again rather worryingly, of almost nothing and that whenever we do find something it turns out not to actually something, but only the probability that there may something there.

There are limitless futures stretching out in every direction from this moment—and from this moment and from this. Billions of them, bifurcating every instant! Every possible position of every possible electron balloons out into billions of probabilities! Billions and billions of shining, gleaming futures!

anything that was Infinitely Improbable was actually very likely to happen almost immediately.

Five to one against and falling …" she said, "four to one against and falling … three to one … two … one … probability factor of one to one … we have normality, I repeat we have normality." She turned her microphone off—then turned it back on— with a slight smile and continued: "Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem. Please relax. You will be sent for soon.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says that if you hold a lungful of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds. However, it does go on to say that what with space being the mindboggling size it is the chances of getting picked up by another ship within those thirty seconds are two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and nine to one against.

thousand seven hundred and nine to one against. By a totally staggering coincidence that is also the

Think of a number, any number." "Er, five," said the mattress. "Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?" The

Trillian punched up the figures. They showed two-to-the-power-of-Infinity-minus-one to one against (an irrational number that only has a conventional meaning in Improbability Physics).

If such a thing is a virtual impossibility, then it must logically be a finite improbability.

But that's incredible." "No, Zaphod. Just very very improbable." "Er, yeah.

Two to the power of twenty thousand to one against and falling.