Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024123, Thu, 2 May 2013 12:35:40 +0100

Subject
Re: NABOKV-L Digest - 20 Apr 2013 to 21 Apr 2013 (#2013-100)
Date
Body
Tim: loath to spoil your mind-blown moment, but the mathematics of
birthday-matching probabilities are well-known. For example, given any
random sample of 23 HomSaps, there¹s a better than 50% chance that two will
share the same birthday. Likewise, given the millions born on April 22,
there¹s a high Œprior¹ probability that Œmatching¹ groups can be extracted.

In other words, our surprise should peak in the absence of MORE birthday
Œcoincidences!¹

I often wonder if VN ever checked the birthdays of the 22 players and 3
officials assembled when he was goal-keeping for his Cambridge college?

One can allow for some Œgee whiz fatidic fun,¹ but any stumbling into
astrology must be resisted,

Stan Kelly-Bootle, MA (Cantab), MAA, AMS.

On 23/04/2013 00:00, "Tim Henderson" <tim.hendo@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> OK, it's blowing my mind a little that two of my favorite writers, both known
> for wordplay, prickly personae and anti-totalitarianism, were both born April
> 22 --
> http://www.andina.com.pe/Espanol/noticia-escritor-guillermo-cabrera-infante-na
> cio-un-dia-como-hoy-455835.aspx
>


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