I read in a paper that the chance of getting a hole in one are 12,500 to 1. The article continued that to get 4 holes in one is (1/125000) to the power of four.
Why does the chance decrease per attempt? The universe doesn’t know you’ve had one or two or three results already so why are increasing holes in one less likely?
I see that intuitively this might be the case, but I’m not fully convinced. Part of me believes that the chance of getting any number of holes in on should be 12,500 to 1.
In: 1
Probability and statistics are fun. It’s honestly the coolest math. And you’re right OP, every single attempt at a hole in one is a separate event, with its own probability of happening regardless of any other events. So if you sink the very first hole, the second hole your chance will still be 1/125000 regardless of the first attempt. And it goes on like that. If you take each hole as a separate instance, your chance will always be the same. But if you are looking at the set of holes, and your chance of sinking any amount of them above 1, then your odds go way down, essentially 1:125000^n n being the number of holes you want to get in one.
To reiterate, each event has the same odds, but calculating the probability of multiple events is as you listed, which is 1:125000^4. As you complete holes in one, your odds aren’t going up or down. It’s just that the entire set of events happening have the overarching odds of 1:125000^4.
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