You haveprobably heard this old joke: A businessman comes to see astatistician,

Question

You haveprobably heard this old joke: A businessman comes to see astatistician, and expresses a concern that in the course of hisfrequent travels he may be in a plane into which a bomb has beenplanted. The statistician tells him that the probability that abomb would be in any plane is only 0.00000001. The businessman isstill concerned, so the statistician advises him to take one bombalong with him, because the probability that there are twobombs in a plane is 0.000000012, i.e.0.000000000000001.

Strictly speaking, in terms ofprobabilities, is this really true? Why or why not.

Explanation / Answer

In terms of probability this makes sense but this is just talkingmathematically. If person A is bringing a bomb onto theplane, it will not prevent him from doing so just because everyoneelse on the plane has one.

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