Editing Talk:2599: Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio
Please sign your posts with ~~~~ |
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 78: | Line 78: | ||
:Sort of, but probabilities don't exactly behave like that. On that analysis, given enough time outside, the probability would pass 1 and keep on rising. But a probability of 1 is absolute certainty, so probabilities higher than that are meaningless. I believe the comic is consistent with your assumption that the rate is constant -- the probability of getting hit during an hour is the same no matter which hour it is. It seems reasonable to me, too. Then after 1 hour, your probability of remaining unhit is 0.999999999 or whatever. After 2 hours, it's the probability of remaining unhit in the first hour times the probability of remaining unhit in the second hour, 0.999999999^2. After 3 hours, it's 0.999999999^3, and so on. So the probability of *ever* getting hit actually follows an exponential curve. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.173|108.162.245.173]] 16:32, 8 April 2022 (UTC) | :Sort of, but probabilities don't exactly behave like that. On that analysis, given enough time outside, the probability would pass 1 and keep on rising. But a probability of 1 is absolute certainty, so probabilities higher than that are meaningless. I believe the comic is consistent with your assumption that the rate is constant -- the probability of getting hit during an hour is the same no matter which hour it is. It seems reasonable to me, too. Then after 1 hour, your probability of remaining unhit is 0.999999999 or whatever. After 2 hours, it's the probability of remaining unhit in the first hour times the probability of remaining unhit in the second hour, 0.999999999^2. After 3 hours, it's 0.999999999^3, and so on. So the probability of *ever* getting hit actually follows an exponential curve. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.173|108.162.245.173]] 16:32, 8 April 2022 (UTC) | ||
::(I mean, the rate might not be constant not on a time scale of decades or more. You could go from a society that can't launch spacecraft at all to launching a few and then many, or from a society that just lets 'em fall to one that takes responsibility for moving large pieces into a parking orbit or a controlled deorbit, or from a society that takes responsibility to a charred ruin pocked with circles of radioactive glass, or from that to the rise of Atlantean mages from the tunnels of Shambhala whose mana shall deorbit all things, as the History Channel hath prophesied. But anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.173|108.162.245.173]] 16:33, 8 April 2022 (UTC) | ::(I mean, the rate might not be constant not on a time scale of decades or more. You could go from a society that can't launch spacecraft at all to launching a few and then many, or from a society that just lets 'em fall to one that takes responsibility for moving large pieces into a parking orbit or a controlled deorbit, or from a society that takes responsibility to a charred ruin pocked with circles of radioactive glass, or from that to the rise of Atlantean mages from the tunnels of Shambhala whose mana shall deorbit all things, as the History Channel hath prophesied. But anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.173|108.162.245.173]] 16:33, 8 April 2022 (UTC) | ||
− | |||
− |