How do things that are extremely improbably still happen?

Question

like being struck by lightening 17 times, or bumping into Bill Gates on the street? If it's so unlikely why does it still happen? (please think about it before you call me an idiot!)

Answer 1

I have a strong belief in destiny and fate, what most people call a coincidence i call fate. there is a reason for everything that exists or happens. that's what i think.

Answer 2

Everything is improbable. But something has to happen.

Answer 3

Um, when I'm not being all philosophical I like to the think of a "line of probability" with sections for each possibility and each percentage, and then a pointer moving back and forth across the line continuously, and it just stops randomly and then what happens happens. But when I am being philosophical I think of it as being at a certain place in the space time continuum, and all the factors mixing together and making a scenario real. It's confusing...

Answer 4

I believe that, given enough time, everything will happen again, no matter how improbable. Think about it: even assuming that our universe will eventually contract and destroy everything, it will probably expand again, or other universes that we're unaware of could exist, with an entirely different set of laws and circumstances.

It seems to be a strong bet that if we're granted an infinite amount of time, someone very much like you could ask this same question again eons and eons from now.

Answer 5

What?

Ok, the record for being struck is seven, first off.

But otherwise, these things happen because improbable is based on the likelihood of one event or disease or whatever else happening to someone in America, as opposed to all the ones it won't happen to.

I should put that into perspective.

America, the country with 300 million people.

The world has six BILLION people in it.

So if Bill Gates has someone bump into him on the street (I'm assuming you mean physically bump into him) every day for an entire year that would still be three hundred and sixty five people, a lot by many an account but still small considering that there are six billion others in the world it could have happened to.

Answer 6

just being struck by lightning once is extremely improbable.

but anyway, just you breathing right now is extremely improbable. I mean look at earth, its the only planet in the whole galaxy that has life. well so far as we know.

But were only here by a series of extremely improbable events. We had to rely on these extradinary occurances  to even be here right now.

like us being in the only space in our solar system with the right temperature to sustain life. Or our moon having just the right amount of mass to have a gravitational affect on our planet and help us maintain the cycles we need to live. there are countless examples.

If extremely improbable events didnt happen, we wouldnt be here right now talking about why extremely improbable things happen. lol

Answer 7

The two most likely culprits are Time and Iteration.  

To say that something is improbable is taking a narrow view.  It might be improbable for a single person on a single day to get hit by lighting...but if you take 7 billion people and 100 lightning strikes per second over the globe (believe it or not that is close to the average number), then it becomes VERY likely that you will have lighting striking people, even some of those people getting it multiple times (and that doesn't even take into account the behavior of some people which can raise their probability).  

The other most important factor is time.  Creationists like to claim that the odds of "life" arising spontaneously are astoundingly small.  But if you factor in billions of years, it becomes almost inevitable!  

If you flip a coin 10 times, the odds of getting 10 heads are minuscule...but if you flip a coin 10 billion times, the odds of somewhere in the sequence there being 10 heads in a row are almost 100%.

Answer 8

the word is improbably not impossible

Answer 9

Odds.

Just because ther are Odds against something happening does not mean that it wont happen. When you think about it ,there are Odds against everything happening--and odds for everything happening. Like a heart Attack or a stroke--or a tooth ache for that matter. Walking down the street without stubbing your toe happens, possibly because the person is walking very carefully--or possibly because the person is walking and NOT thinking about stubbing his toe, therefore it is Less likely to happen. Statisticians are employed the world over, and Risk assessment analysts-- to determine the liklihood that a person will die before a certain age or what the liklihood of death is in a car accident. Insurance dealers are calculating these odds all of the time.

Things that are unlikely to happen, still happen, because the odds are that they, at some point will.

Answer 10

Fate?

Because it can happen.

My friends told me a story that another friend once said she saw a hundred dollar bill on the street but when she went to pick it up it blew down into the sewer. It's the most unlikley thing to ever happen, but whos to say it didn't? She probably wouldn't even think about making it up if there wasn't the slightest chance it could be true. Odd things happen in the world today.

Great isn't it?

Answer 11

When you're on a golf course during a storm swinging a club, kind of thinking odds are good!

Answer 12

you are forgetting that there are 6 billion people in the world and people have exist for thousands of years. one out of a large number still can happen if you have large number of chances for it to happen.