Normal distribution: Difference between revisions

Normal distribution (view source)

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 day in 1 300 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 days.}}
-By comparison, the earth is 1 658 000 000 000 days old, and the universe itself ten times older than that (16 580 000 000 000 000 days). So we are talking about an event that you would only expect once in several billion billion billion billion billion lives of the universe, happening ''several days in a row''.
+By comparison, the earth is 1 658 000 000 000 days old, and the universe itself ten times older than that (16 580 000 000 000 000 days). So we are talking about an event that you would only expect once in several trillion trillion trillion trillion lives of the universe, happening ''several days in a row''.
 No, Mr Viniar: you weren’t seeing cosmos-defying anomalies. ''Your models were wrong''. But enough already of the chutzpah.<ref>But, [[get your coat]], you know?</ref> The practical lesson is that, unless you are dealing with normally-distributed events, normal probabilities are a ''really'' bad proxy at the extremes. ''Ninety-nine per cent of the way there is nowhere. It isn’t good enough''.