double booking
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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.
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What are the chances of being double-booked into a sleeper cabin on the Aberdeen-London Euston Caledonian Express on a Wednesday night in January? Just this week, this happened to me, presumably as a result of a computer error. I have travelled on this sleeper on various weeknights, quite a number of times over the last few years, and I have never been double-booked before. What is most remarkable however, is that the person that I was double-booked with is someone that I know professionally. The population of the region is less than 500,000, and only a very small subset of that number is likely to travel on the sleeper train. I would love to know what the probability of this event is?
Date submitted:Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:09:32 +0000Coincidence ID:5848
