On Tue, Aug 30, 2005 at 05:07:59PM +1000, Jarrod Hollingworth wrote:
> Umm, that's not the maths. Sure, if there were only 5 domains names
> available and he was to get ALL of them your math is correct. The true
> situation is that there were more available and he only nabbed a portion
> (25%?) of them.
> 
> ie. If 100 domain names were available and I was one of 100 applications for
> each then the probability that I would get *a* domain name is 1 (100 x 1/100
> = 1), not 0.01 as per your calculations. The chance that I'd get the first 2
> would be 0.01 x 0.01 = 0.0001 but the chance that I'd get *any* two would be
> 50%.

Um... the probability of getting at least one is 1 minus the probability of
getting none. That probability is (99/100)**100 or about 37%. So the
probability of getting 1 or more for 100 applications for 100 names is
(only) about 63%, not 100%.