Re: Probability in an infinite sample space
- From: Virgil <ITSnetNOTcom#virgil@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:48:42 -0700
In article <37055$442269b3$82a1e228$25857@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Han de Bruijn <Han.deBruijn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Gerry Myerson wrote:
Excellent. I take it we can generalize, and agree that the probability
of picking 39 is also zero. So are the probabilities of picking 36, or
33, or ... or 3 - or 45, or 48, or 51, or ... well, or any other
specified multiple of 3.
So how come when you add up all those zeros, you get one-third?
This is the standard, but quite vulnerable, argument of any mainstream
mathematician.
The solution is that the probabilities of picking these numbers are not
zero, but infinitesimals.
That requires the standard reals to have infnitesimals, which they don't.
.
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