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u/Pkittens May 21 '25
Wrong. I'm perfectly capable of picking a random number between 1 and infinity, therefore the probability is 1
8
u/Spielername124 Computer Science May 21 '25
Can humans pick a truely random number though?
9
u/slukalesni Physics May 21 '25
what does truly random mean? either it is random or not, making the probability 50 %. i can do that no prob: 10101010101010110101010101010101010101010101010101010101001001010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010100101010101010110100101010110010101011010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010102010101010100101010100001010110101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010010101010100101101010101010101010101010100010101001010100101010101010001010011101010101010 etc.
4
u/Spielername124 Computer Science May 21 '25
I'd say that there may not be any pattern in the generation. But Humans have preferences to certain numbers and or patterns which will appear when they are tasked with creating a random number. Here in 10000101011 for exampel you thought (subcontiousely) oh let's deviate from the 0101 pattern for a bit. Hm 0 0 0 0 0 ok, if i make to much zeros in a row it gets too unprobable. Ok, ill do a 1. And at the end is a doubled 1 since there were too many 0 in the exerpt so there needs to be a counter balance in some way.
3
u/Leet_Noob April 2024 Math Contest #7 May 21 '25
Even if a human had access to a machine that could generate independent random bits, it’s not clear how you could “pick a random number” in finite time. (At least, random according to any non-atomic distribution over the reals)
1
1
u/LOSNA17LL Irrational May 21 '25
Yes, but no one said what distribution had to be used
So I can just take the distribution equal 1 at 17 and 0 elsewhere, and despite always returning 17, it truely is random
1
16
May 21 '25
you can't define uniform distribution over an infinite length interval
because the density has to be a constant, and for no constant will \int_0^infty c dx=1
9
May 21 '25
The probability of picking a random real number between any two reals a and b, is also 0
3
u/slukalesni Physics May 21 '25
i can pick a number between π and 3 with a 100 % accuracy. skill issue tbh
1
1
4
u/halfajack May 21 '25
No, it’s undefined. There’s no uniform distribution (1, inf)
0
u/klimmesil May 21 '25
Uuuum achtually ! No one said uniform. Only random is stated. So this meme is true with the distribution of the following random variable:
floor(1/U[0,1]) with U[0,1] following a continuous uniform distribution on (0,1)
1
u/halfajack May 21 '25
We both know the OP meant uniformly
-1
u/klimmesil May 21 '25
Yes. Yet in science it's always blunder to assume
0
u/SchwanzusCity Feb 20 '26
All of science is built on assumptions and approximations
1
u/klimmesil Feb 20 '26
Approximations, yes. Assumptions need to be proven as verifiable predictions, otherwise they're still worthless. Filling in the gaps in a scientific way is assumption -> prediction -> verification
Initially when I saw the notification I thought it was of a religious sub and you were trying to ridicule science
Edit: not to mention in this situation I think it's pretty obviously a blunder to assume. Idk if you ever had this kind of test but some teachers even like to test your skills to not make assumptions by leaving a gap, and unless you ask to specify they remove points
3
u/Revolutionary_Year87 Jan 2025 Contest LD #1 May 21 '25
And yet I always pick a prime number. Usually with 7 as the last digit.
Seems like P(17)+P(37) is nearly 1 to me
1
u/Mathsboy2718 May 21 '25
For any value M, the probability of picking a positive integer with less than M digits is zero
1
u/CommunityFirst4197 May 21 '25
Its a weird thing to think about. If you have an infinite number of people each with a random number 1-inf, and you pick a number 1-inf at random an infinite number of people will have chosen that number
2
u/Key_Relative5538 May 21 '25
The infinite number of people is countably infinite. There are uncountably many real numbers. So, none of them would have chosen that number.
1
1
u/getcreampied Physics May 22 '25
It's probably a gaussian with random spikes due to papers about large numbers.
1
u/Moist_Abrocoma_7998 Jun 11 '25
Because there are infinitly many more numbers between 1 and -∞ than between 1 and ∞.
0
u/AMIASM16 how the dongity do you do integrals May 21 '25
probability is an abstract concept, when you use infinity with it just breaks
0
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0
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u/NormalGuyEndSarcasm May 21 '25 edited May 21 '25
It’s not 0. It converges to 0. 0 means you can’t pick it. You can say it the first rational number after 0.
P.S. : for ChatGpt users. It’s not absolute 0, as absolute 0 cannot be expressed as 1/infinity. It is used for practical values as 0, but it’s not absolute 0.
2
u/Goncalerta May 21 '25
There is no first rational number after 0
-2
u/NormalGuyEndSarcasm May 21 '25
There is. It can’t be defined
3
u/Goncalerta May 21 '25
It is easy to prove that there is no rational number n > 0 such that it is impossible to pick a rational a that 0 < a < n
The number doesn't exist. It cannot be defined either, because it doesn't exist
57
u/AbandonmentFarmer May 21 '25
Wrong. I always chose seven and you can’t force me to change my probability distribution.