Asklemmy

42525 readers

992 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

380

What are some commonly known facts that are too bizarre for you to believe to be true? (lemm.ee)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

490 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For me it is the fact that our blood contains iron. I earlier used to believe the word stood for some 'organic element' since I couldn't accept we had metal flowing through our supposed carbon-based bodies, till I realized that is where the taste and smell of blood comes from.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 53 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (23 children)

The birthday paradox

If you get 23 people in a room the odds of two of them sharing a birthday are 50%

The birthday paradox is a veridical paradox: it seems wrong at first glance but is, in fact, true. While it may seem surprising that only 23 individuals are required to reach a 50% probability of a shared birthday, this result is made more intuitive by considering that the birthday comparisons will be made between every possible pair of individuals. With 23 individuals, there are (23 × 22)/2 = 253 pairs to consider, far more than half the number of days in a year.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (8 children)

it's not part of the paradox, but there are also days when people tend to have more sex
like new years, valentines, christmas etc. (in the west at least)
so you tend to get more people born 9 months after those days

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I listen to This American Life also.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

i don't know what that is

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

! I just assumed, lol

They have an episode where they talk about the birthday paradox and then follow it up with talking about how the math isn’t 100% correct as applied to humans bc birthdays aren’t normally distributed.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/630/transcript#:~:text=A%20simple%20way%20to%20think,those%20two%20share%20a%20birthday.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

ah, fair enough lol

load more comments (6 replies)

load more comments (20 replies)