[Probability]

Something I realised while talking to the Fairfield guys today. 99% chance of success for an incident to occur never really guarantees anything as much as 1% chance of success.

Let's take the example of shooting a basketball:

99% chance of scoring would mean 99 out of a 100 tries
That may be 100 shots and 99 scored (Balls shot in any order)
Then again, it can also be that the first 100 balls are missed, but the next 9900 shots are scored.

1% chance of scoring would mean 1 out of a 100 tries
That may be 100 shots and 1 scores. (Balls shot in any order)
Then again, it can also be that the first 100 balls are scored, but the next 9900 shots are missed.

1% does not need to happen in the 1st hundred. You can shoot 200 balls and the scored ones are positioned at 101th and 102th. Statically however, on paper it all appears as the same. 1 out of a 100 or 1%.

Hence there is no certainty that 99% chance is guaranteed a sure success as much as the 1% on the first try. It is anyone's guess. Nothing is certain in life. Everything has an element of chance in it. For Christians, they call it divine intervention. For the rest, they call it luck. Would like to end with this quote I came across a long time ago.



"That is why I hate probability! Cause in the end, it's either 0 or 1. It either happens, or it doesn't."
-a beloved friend