(I wasn’t able to find this specific question, so sorry if it’s been asked before)
Earlier today, I was told I would get a call between 5:00 and 6:00. If we make the assumption that this call is, for certain, going to occur within the specified time frame, I was under the assumption that every minute that passed would result in an increase in probability of the call would happen. For example, I was thinking that for the first minute the chance I get the call are 1/60, while the second minute would be 1/59 (as there are now only 59 minutes in which it could happen) and so on until the last minute is 1/1 (if I had still not received the call).
However, I was thinking back to my Freshman statistics course where my professor was talking about how the chances of the event happening at any given moment are the same, regardless of what time it is. In this case, at any given minute, the chance of me getting a call would still be 1/60. Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of the terminology that goes with these concepts, so I can’t remember if that actually applies to this problem.
So, in short, does the probability of something presumably inevitable increase as time passes? Or is the chance the same at any given moment?
In: Mathematics
I think the confusing part of this is the human aspect of “a call will come between x and y”. That introduces the “bullshit” aspect of believing there is a human whose life depends on calling you between 5 and 6 and no other option is possible.
But the best way to translate this statement factoring in both statistics and human bullshit, and speaking the truth, would be “any time between 5 and 6pm has an equally likely chance of someone calling you”.
The person who needs to call you could get suddenly busy, they won’t call. They could die, they won’t call. Their phone could get stolen by Houthie rebels, they aren’t going to call. There are so many statistics breaking “reality” factors here that make this less of a statistics class statement and more of a sociology experiment.
From a statistics POV as best as can be translated is “any time between 5 and 6 pm is equally likely to be called”. Per my hyperbolic points, that likelihood could be 0%.
You can’t really ascribe hard statistics logic to human behavior AND be a **good** customer service representative.
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