Chance meeting 6700 km away

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I live with my current wife in Mexico City, and my ex-wife lives with her new husband here also. My current wife ran into my ex-wife's current husband in an elevator in Santiago, Chile, 6700 km away. They were on business, not vacation, and work in very dissimilar jobs. Besides the awkwardness, I tried to calculate the chances. Of course the chances of these two specific humans would meet in this specific place in the world at this specific time and date are astronomically small, but it is irrelevant because it would apply to any meeting of any two persons in the world. But for my spouse to meet her spouse abroad in our lifetimes: Assuming they would work 25 years after our separation but we would live another 40, that they travel abroad 10 days a year in 2 6.7-day work weeks), to 2 of 20 different destinations. Santiago has 48 business class (4 to 5 star) hotels. I assume they worked at least 8 hours a day (no chance of meeting), and slept another 8 (my ex and I assume that this time is also a "no chance" ;-), and I assume that the rest of the day (8 hours at the most, and I assume they were the same 8 hours of the day) they moved about. Of these 8 hours, half an hour was spent in the hotel common areas (elevators etc.) I assume they would see the faces of 30 guests of an average 300 hotel guests present during their half hour there. Given that they were in the same hotel for the same 6.7 days, they had a 16/120 chance (13.3%) of being at the hotel at the same time (there are 120 combinations of 16 half hours, any of the 16 half hours in the 6.7 days would be a "hit" ). While being at the hotel at the same time, they had a 1/10 chance of meeting. Given that they were in Santiago, the chances that they stayed at the same hotel are 48/1,128 (4.26%). They had a 20/95 (21.1%) chance of picking the same city in a given year. They had a 52/1,326 (3.92%) chance of travelling the same week. They had a 25/300 (8.33%) chance of travelling the same year while they worked. They had a 25/40 (62.5%) chance that it was during a work year. So the chances that the travelling working spouses of an ex couple will meet abroad during their lifetime is 1/4,098,870. Which is still very unlikely but unexceptional if you consider how many possible "remarkable" coincidences you live in you life everyday. Consider that it may be you running into your ex's spouse, or your father meeting his/her father, or any other combination. Also, I'm calculating specifically the chances of spouse-related run-ins abroad, but this is not the only case of remarkable coincidences that would get our attention.
Total votes: 248
Date submitted:Mon, 28 May 2012 22:19:23 +0000Coincidence ID:6403