LogFAQs > #980323181

EPR-radar posted...

You take one trip on the plane, and there are 1000 other people on it. Your chance of death is 50%.

You take a second trip on the same plane, having survived the first trip, and this time there are 1,000,000 other people on that plane. Your chance of dying in that second trip is still 50%.

It really is that simple.

You don't understand. The plane's chance of crashing on any one flight is not what is being asked. That's why I said he worded it poorly, because it sounds like you're just getting on a plane that has a 50% chance of crashing. Again, that is not the question.

I thought I explained it clearly, so I'll try again.

In half the cases in which this plane flies, it never lands a single time. In all of those cases, you are the one passenger on that flight, because the problem says so.

In the 50% of cases that make it past the first trip, half of those crash. Those crashes represent 25% of all possible cases. Within that 25% of cases you have a 2/3 chance of death. You were either on the first flight alone and landed, or you were one of the two who died on the second flight.

The pattern continues.