Vikrama Sanjeeva--- But what about the "number of successfull chances" ? Will it increase? Yes. Probability of a an outcome increases with the number of tries.
If x is the probability of a positive outcome in one single task and N is the number of tries, then
P_always = x^N
P_never = (1-x)^N
P_alteast_once = 1 - P_never
x being less than 1, powers of x get smaller and smaller.
As N increases, P_always decreases. It gets "more and more improbable" for the outcome to be always positive every time.
As N increases, P_never decreases too. It gets "more and more improbable" for the outcome to be always negative every time.
But as N increases, P_atleast_once increases.
That is, if you keep repeating the same task over and over again, the probability of a positive outcome atleast once increases.
And the probability of a negative outcome atleast once also increases.
Vikrama Sanjeeva--- If I am not geting u wrong, then consider this E.g: I asked u to fire a bottle placed on a top of pillar. Distance b/w u and pillar is 0.25KM. First of all, the distance information is useful only if you provide a relation between the probability and the distance. E.g. P is inversely proportional to the sum of three times square root of distance and the tan of the angle of the wind and the direction of the bullet, keeping the speed of the wind constant, etc. or something like that. In the above case, the distance is not needed so long as it is within the possible range of shooting
Vikrama Sanjeeva--- You have 5 chances (i.e. five bullets). Probability of hiting bottle on every chance will be 1/5; Second, how did you achieve that number? Probability of hiting bottle on ANY given chance for every chance will always be 1/2. That is, you either hit, or you miss.
Vikrama Sanjeeva--- but what about the number of chances of hiting bottle? Will it be different if you have 10 bullets (chances)? Yes. If you keep shooting day in and day out, the chances of hitting more times increases. For this, we don't need the mathematical knowledge of probability, do we? Ask the telemarketers. Or the kids persuading their parents for more toys. They know this well
[Edit] That kind of contradicts my previous statement -- "Probability does not increases with repetition. " So I'll try and rephrase it:
Probability of an outcome for an event does not increase with repetition when each occurance of the event is considered separately.
Probability of an outcome happening atleast once does increase with increase in the number of chances taken togather.
[ April 19, 2005: Message edited by: Bhau Mhatre ]