Talk about odds!

[SnowFella]

Not that my maths is the best but I figure it to be 6.25% chance of this.
Pregnant stepdaughter has been in for a followup ultrasound today and found out what she's getting....another girl. That makes it 4 out of 4 girls for the wife and I so far from 2 out of her 3 kids I'm going to be seriously outnumbered here soon!

[majcka]

Not that my maths is the best but I figure it to be 6.25% chance of this.
Pregnant stepdaughter has been in for a followup ultrasound today and found out what she's getting....another girl. That makes it 4 out of 4 girls for the wife and I so far from 2 out of her 3 kids I'm going to be seriously outnumbered here soon!

Nooooo! Because i bet you have some MALE CACTI around there somewhere.

Another arithmetics is about character weight. How about that?

[daiv]

Here is your answer:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Run.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[cactushobbyman]

My uncle had 6 boys before he got his girl. By the time you finish that probability run, she may have 6 girls and then that boy.

[martenfisher]

I have dealt heavily in genetics breeding snakes. I find the odds are never set in stone and often throw in some incredible surprises.

[SnowFella]

Now that maths gave me a headache just looking at it! No wonder I flunked the statistics part of my uni cource!
Just remains now to see if the familys hereditary genetics quirk gets passed on, wife passed on her sperocytosis on to 2 of her 3 kids and sofar only one granddaughter has got it.

[daiv]

Yes, the old "coin toss" is a good test method for 50:50 odds.

Each and every time you do the toss, your chance of getting "heads" is 50%. (assuming the coin isn't heavier on one side, etc. etc.)

This is true even if you tossed a coin and got 1000 heads in a row before that, the odds on your next toss are still 50:50!

I think that is where the real head scratching comes in - there are in fact odds against getting a run, but all the while there is no real connection between the individual tosses. The odds remain 50:50 on each toss no matter what the prior results. Sort of a paradox!

[majcka]

The odds remain 50:50 on each toss no matter what the prior results. Sort of a paradox!

Now I'm going to get me a lottery ticket. Daiv just predicted me 50:50 odds on getting 1 million euros in jack pot.

[peterb]

Binomial probability distribution! a great topic. haha. I had never seen that formula for a "clump" or "run" before, Daiv, thanks for that link. I will incorporate it into my prob/stat class this coming year. For a certain combo of boys/girls as offspring, assuming the odds of a boy or girl are fixed (I think the odds of having a girl are slightly higher than 50% but I can't find that data right now), you can just figure the probability using binomial expansion.

peterb

oops, meant to include this link, which is a fairly clear explanation: http://stattrek.com/probability-distrib ... omial.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SnowFella]

Not that I'm much for maths but a classmate once proved that statistics and probablility could come in handy even in something totally unrelated to a maths class. Multiple choice portion of a German test had him all stumped, could only reliably answer a fraction of the questions knowing the answer. So rather than take a punt on individual questerions he rolled the dice and ticked every question he couldn't answer the same way. Figured that rather than make multiple guesses he'd have more of a chance if he only made one guess.
He was right, teacher toldl him she knew exactly what he had done but couldn't fault him for the guesses that ended up correct.

[Saxicola]

My grandparents had 4 daughters and no sons. Out of those 4 daughters there were 5 girls and one boy (me!). I was the last grandchild too, so my grandfather really had to wait to get that boy he always wanted!

[Tony]

Congratulations!

[SnowFella]

Cheers Tony.
Love my stepgrandkids (substitute for kids of my own) to bits....though I wish the little muchkins would learn what parts of poppy ain't suitable as footsteps, pool kickoff boards or general punching targets! With all the times they have hit and kicked me where it counts I doubt kids of my own would even be possible!

[Peterthecactusguy]

I suck at math, but I have known people who had statistical odds based on genetics to have babies of one sex or the other and they did. One couple had 4 boys, the other couple had 3 girls (both stopped have children after those but assuming that the wives could still get pregnant and the husbands were the fathers the odds were closer to 90+% that they would have children that were the same sex as their other offspring. (Do not ask me how this works or why because I don't know)

[SnowFella]

Righty, this is for those more clued on than me in statistics to figure out.

Welcomed granddaughter #5 into the world earlier on today.
Here's #1, #4 and #5 having a first cuddle.


#6 is already "cooking" for a mid January arrival! No telling what it will be just yet though.