Comments on: Guns don’t kill people, puppies do

By: NickCooper625

NickCooper625 — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:57:56 +0000

My wife’s sister has the same birthday as my mother. Two of my brothers have birthdays on consecutive days (close enough?!).

I was born on 21 September 1966. In my youth, it was only after I had already developed an interest in the works of H.G. Wells that I discovered that he was born on 21 September 1866. I do not, of course, claim reincarnation….

By: martinz

martinz — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:49:33 +0000

The glaring error is the factor of 365. The likelihood of clustering is hard to quantify, but could be very big: suppose you read ‘Outliers’ and were successful in planning to have kids in the couple of months pre school admissions? Could easily be a factor of >10.

However did anyone spot the other obvious simple mathematical error, even assuming independence? The woman in question actually has *four* kids. So the probability in increased by another factor of four (4 ways of choosing 3 from 4). So we are down from 1 in 50 million to about 1 in 34,000.

By: adamb

adamb — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:46:24 +0000

Our daughter was born on the same day (21st August, a truly auspicious day) as my wife and I were married. Ok it was by C-section but of course it is still an utterly tremendous coincidence (no-one need know it wasn’t a natural birth). It doesn’t end there…..my parents were married on that same day too!! And – gosh this is truly unbelieveable….the series of coincidences…..!! my father’s parents were married on that exact same date! According to the Daily Mirror, this is a one-in-almost 18 billion chance event!!

By: johnnye87

johnnye87 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:33:09 +0000

The idea of buying a lottery ticket to cash in on a stroke of luck reminds me of a Jasper Fforde comic novel where the heroine used a jar of mixed grains as an early warning system for a baddie with entropy-manipulation powers – if they sort themselves into improbable patterns, watch out.

…it’s better than it sounds, honest.

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:37:53 +0000

Dropoutboogie, sharing (or having similar) birthdays with friends isn’t that unlikely. With pre-natal and post-natal support groups there are often groups of children born close to each other.

Even without that, once at school children with similar birthdays may stick together as, within a single year group, the children born in August will be almost a full year younger than children born in September. The September/ October kids will be that much bigger.

By: Shn

Shn — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:36:22 +0000

My brother and I were not just born on a shared day of the year, but also the exact same birth date! Can your precious science explain THAT, eh?

By: dropoutboogie

dropoutboogie — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:22:03 +0000

I used to think it was incredible that I had two best friends with my birthay, as well as knowing several other people that shared the date, until upon meeting yet another person born on the same day of the year, he pointed out to me that our birthday was almost exactly 9 months after valentine’s day. I’ve never looked at my parents the same way.

By: Beanzy

Beanzy — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:58:38 +0000

My mum, older brother and younger brother share the same birthday. We never thought it was more than 1 in 365 chance as they all had to be born on some day of the year and one day’s as good as the next. Surely it’s just that the random occurrence of three in one group happening just happened to our particular group?

By: Andy_Ward

Andy_Ward — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:18:08 +0000

lol, I didn’t notice it was comment 11

By: toni49

toni49 — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:53:07 +0000

An uncle of mine had a habit of pointing out what he termed 50:50:90 events – ones that statistically were 50:50 chance, but he noticed that they happened 90% of the time (needless to say these were always unwanted events). When I suggested that if they happened that often, surely in was the 50:50:10 events that are worth pointing out, it took him less than a week to conceed that he doesn’t “always” pick the slowest queue in the supermarket!

By: postmodernslavepoet

postmodernslavepoet — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:56:08 +0000

I couldn’t help noticing that Andy_Ward’s comment about the coincidence of 11s reported in the Sun was, spookily enough, comment number 11.

11 is of course a most mystical and lucky number. Some older people amongst you may remember that the nations involved in the Great War all stopped fighting at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Wikipedia says this happened in 1918 but they probably got it wrong and it must have happened in 1911. Surely this was the coincidence to end all coincidences.

Further proof about the power of 11, (should any further proof really be needed), comes from a woman I know who has 11 children all born on the same date in successive years. Mind you, by trade, her husband was a master precision grinder.

By: milttina

milttina — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:41:45 +0000

@Bluecat – And many people born in Feb. are prom babies.

By: Jazz

Jazz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:28:24 +0000

I think what would be more interesting is if there was a day in the year where no one was born, ever, except for one single human being
“PERSON SHARES BIRTHDAY WITH NO ONE!” the headline will read. Actually even that sounds boring!

By: bluecat

bluecat — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:57:04 +0000

My parents had their first three children at 18-month-less-2-days intervals. I thought it was an amazing coincidence until I realised the relationship between our births, the timings of school holidays and half terms, and my father’s career as a teacher.
My partner has four children. The second was born on the second of the month, the third on the third, and the fourth on the fourth. Unfortunately the eldest messed up this extraordinary and significant conjunction and prevented them getting their pictures in the paper by being born on the 4th of July.
Incidentally, anyone born on Christmas Day or Boxing Day may have been an April Fool’s joke…

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:21:41 +0000

My wife has the same birthday as Mick Jagger although she is much younger. She thinks it is a spooky omen.

But Mr SnootyPants Jagger thinks he is above it all and despite her many emails, letters and presents over the years he still refuses to acknowledge her and make a date for dinner..

Can’t he see the odds?

By: Dr Spouse

Dr Spouse — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:12:23 +0000

Surely by the “rules” of luck, if you have three children born on the same date, you have had your luck for the year, and should avoid buying lottery tickets, and of course, walking under ladders, and spilling salt.

By: Johnnie

Johnnie — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:36:17 +0000

Great article, but obviously just an excuse to get a Goldie Lookin Chain reference in. Which is fine.

By: huey

huey — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:55:50 +0000

found a picture. on the guardian website no less.

image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Lifeandhealth/Pix/pictures/2010/02/02/double_yolk_eggs.jpg

By: huey

huey — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:50:00 +0000

there was a story in the news recently about a woman who found 6 double yolks in a carton of eggs. this was described as odds of 1 in a trillion! leaving aside the fact that i instantly remembered finding 4 double yolks once, I went into m&s the next day, and found on the shelves “double yolk eggs” which you could buy, and yes they were all double yolkers. apparently young chickens lay larger eggs which more often than not have double yolks.

daily mail fail www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247872/Woman-finds-double-egg-yolks-box-beating-trillion-odds.html

By: thepoisongarden

thepoisongarden — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:39:43 +0000

The thing about lottery winnings which hasn’t been mentioned is that no one’s birthday falls on the 32nd of the month (or higher).

As has been said, we’re rubbish at picking random numbers and many people just use ‘my birthday, Aunt Agatha’s birthday, the day the dog nearly ate the budgie’.