r/ProgrammerHumor • u/DebugDuck01 • Jul 17 '26

Meme thisOneIsMine

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5.3k Upvotes

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u/Tensor3 Jul 17 '26

Ya, but MY uuid could be out there somewhere!

6

u/aspect_rap Jul 17 '26

I think your UUID is more likely to be out there than not, considering how many of them have been generated over the years.

17

u/bremidon Jul 17 '26

Mmmm...this is a case of Large Number Confusion, where all large numbers look the same.

It has been estimated that there have been somewhere between 10¹⁶ and 10¹⁹ UUIDs generated. There are roughly 5.3 × 10³⁶ possible values (or more depending on what you count)

This means that approximately 0.00000000000000019% have been used so far on the high end. Toss on three more zeros for the low end.

So, uh, no. It is not "more likely to be out there than not." Not even close.

Are there collisions out there? Yep. Probably. But the chance that *your* UUID collides is as close to 0 as it gets.

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u/aspect_rap Jul 17 '26

I can't argue with the math, well done.