What are the Chances ... ?

[Russic]

Quick story for you that I cannot believe:

My wife is a junior high teacher and one day she gets a text message from one of her students that is not only inappropriate, but the texter identifies herself. Typical junior high girl crap. The content of the text doesn't bother her nearly as much as knowing that some of the kids have figured out her cell # and actually texted her during class (she was annoyed that she didn't see it happen).

So the incident gets taken to the administration as they take stuff like that very seriously. Through the investigation they find out that the text was meant to be sent to another girl in the class and was sent in error. Not only that, when they looked into it further they found that the intended recipient has a cell # that is one digit off from my wifes.

Let's observe the improbability of this. Two totally random people get a cell number that is one digit off. One ends up as the student in the other ones class. That student gets involved in a conflict during a class taught by the teacher. Somebody tries to send a malicious text and of all the mistakes to make, dials the teachers number.

That's basically the equivalent of being in a meeting, getting pissed at a coworker, sending a threatening text message during the meeting, messing up the number by a single digit and having it end up on your bosses phone 5 feet away.

Crazy.

[disco_inferno]

thats intense. i must have had the only number anywhere near mine for the last 5 years, in the last 2 months ive been getting lots of wrong numbers, maybe 2-3 a week. its annoying, but yours is crazy.

[burn_this_city]

Thats completely nuts.. Really the odds are in the millions with a 7 digit number..

[Traditional_Ale]

So happy there were no students in my Jr. High who had cell phones.

[bluejays]

I can just imagine some radio personality reading this, and somehow this finding its way onto some small station then onto Yahoo's Oddly Enough stories. Weird coincidence. WTH did the text say though?

[Phanuthier]

Chances aren't really that far off, actually. Yeah you have 7 digit phone numbers (minus area code) but for cell phone use, there's only a few different first-3 digits. So, the variation happens in the last 4 digits, and assuming you have a similar chance of getting each digit, the chance of having the same didgits (4-6, inclusive) is (1/1000 x probability of the first 3 digits)

Now I don't know how many variations there are to cell phone numbers, but assuming its 20,

1/1000 x 1/20 = 1/20,000

[CrusaderPi]

Even crazier cell phone story. My buddy hit on, picked up and got the cell number of a girl in the bar. The cell number was his old number he gave up three years previous.

[photon]

What are the chances of winning the lottery? Almost impossible!

Except someone always wins

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Chances aren't really that far off, actually.

I was thinking about this and came to the same conclusions.

Plus factor in what the "one digit off" was. For example was the teacher's cell 555-1234 and they dialed 555-1235 or 555-1238? (Once again- depends on your definition of 1 digit off.) Or 555-1834 is also 1 digit off.

Odds are in the 1 in 100's range. Just like when you go to the grocery store and your entire basket comes to an even $259.00- I have had people say "Wow, what are the odds it came to even cents!" And then I say "about 1 in 100."

[Flamesguy_SJ]

Originally Posted by disco_inferno

thats intense. i must have had the only number anywhere near mine for the last 5 years, in the last 2 months ive been getting lots of wrong numbers, maybe 2-3 a week. its annoying, but yours is crazy.

The last few months I've been getting 2-3 "wrong" numbers a day, but the thing is that to them, it's the right number. Apparently somebody around town put my cell phone # on their business card, and I've been getting almost all of their calls since then.

[The Fonz]

edit

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by photon

What are the chances of winning the lottery? Almost impossible!

Except someone always wins

Yeah, exactly. Winning the 6/49 is around the 1 in 13,000,000 range (compared to here, a guess 1 in 20,000 range. That means if you bought 500 6/49 tickets, you'd still have a better chance of misdialing a phone number like this situation then winning the 6/49.

[Jude]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Chances aren't really that far off, actually. Yeah you have 7 digit phone numbers (minus area code) but for cell phone use, there's only a few different first-3 digits. So, the variation happens in the last 4 digits, and assuming you have a similar chance of getting each digit, the chance of having the same didgits (4-6, inclusive) is (1/1000 x probability of the first 3 digits)

Now I don't know how many variations there are to cell phone numbers, but assuming its 20,

1/1000 x 1/20 = 1/20,000

Think your numbers are little off and that doesn't even consider the probability of the intended receiver being in the same school as the actual recipient who also happens to be a teacher /mind boggles

[Phanuthier]

well I didn't want to be a smarty pants and start doing conditional probability and ask for more info to get more accurate %'s, so I took a conservative stance on my numbers with the 1/20 first 3 digits.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by CrusaderPi

Even crazier cell phone story. My buddy hit on, picked up and got the cell number of a girl in the bar. The cell number was his old number he gave up three years previous.

Thats insane. If they had sex the space/time continuum would shatter like Sheldon Souray's shoulder in a darts contest.

[GreenLantern]

Tell your wife to go by a lottery ticket, or two, because that is unreal.

[ok, ok,....I get it]

ok, must ask what was the content of the text?

[Daradon]

I don't know HOW weird that is. It's a coincendence, yeah, but stuff like that happens a lot. Sure there are millions of combinations, but you also forgetting that one person dials a lot of different numbers. They could goof on any of them.

I've heard of a lot weirder stuff happening.

[cSpooge]

Originally Posted by Russic

Quick story for you that I cannot believe:

My wife is a junior high teacher and one day she gets a text message from one of her students that is not only inappropriate, but the texter identifies herself. Typical junior high girl crap. The content of the text doesn't bother her nearly as much as knowing that some of the kids have figured out her cell # and actually texted her during class (she was annoyed that she didn't see it happen).

So the incident gets taken to the administration as they take stuff like that very seriously. Through the investigation they find out that the text was meant to be sent to another girl in the class and was sent in error. Not only that, when they looked into it further they found that the intended recipient has a cell # that is one digit off from my wifes.

Let's observe the improbability of this. Two totally random people get a cell number that is one digit off. One ends up as the student in the other ones class. That student gets involved in a conflict during a class taught by the teacher. Somebody tries to send a malicious text and of all the mistakes to make, dials the teachers number.

That's basically the equivalent of being in a meeting, getting pissed at a coworker, sending a threatening text message during the meeting, messing up the number by a single digit and having it end up on your bosses phone 5 feet away.

Crazy.

my best friend and I have had 1 digit off our phone numbers since we first met 18 years ago... The funny part is my dad has the same name so when people accidentally phone the wrong number we don't realize it till they talk to the wrong mike.

[BuzzardsWife]

thats a crazy story