The birthday problem — Part 1: When counting fails
After the “toy problem” of the previous post, I decided to take a chance at a more tangible, real-world question. Consider this one:
What is the probability that two students in a classroom share the same birthday?
Intuitively (and correctly), you might think it depends on the total number of students. But for a realistic classroom of around 20 students, the probability should be quite low - whatever “low” means. After all, how many times have you witnessed that?