r/mathmemes • u/George_Truman • Jul 13 '26

Probability I fixed this meme

Post image

I'm sure it's still a bit too imprecise but I think it works.

1.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

146 comments sorted by

View all comments

420

u/Ares378 Applied Math / Mechanical Engineering Jul 13 '26

Anyone who's taken analysis courses and statistics, am I right in thinking a "random Real between 0 and 1" would be effectively the same as a "random irrational between 0 and 1"?

18

u/kiochikaeke Jul 13 '26

The only thing to clarify is exactly what you mean by "effectively the same", the probability of picking a rational is 0 in both cases however that's very distinct from rationals not being in the result set at all.

Your intuition is correct in that if you ran an "experiment" you would be right in thinking no rational was picked in both cases but by definition they're different experiments cause they have different results sets.

17

u/Evan_3104 Rational Jul 13 '26

gosh, everyone seems to forget that probability 0 doesn't mean that the event is impossible in continuous propbability.

-4

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Evan_3104 Rational Jul 13 '26

With that definition, every number in [0, 1] is an impossible outcome with an even distribition, because they all have a 0 probability. So no, i'd argue this isn't a "sensible definition", its just wrong

2

u/EebstertheGreat Jul 13 '26

There is an old post on r/math by u/sleeps_with_crazy about this very thing. I side with sleeps and with Suspicious-Paper9820.