Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

Three teachers around me were wearing purple. The first three teachers I saw in the teacher room. At first I worried that it was some "wear purple day" and in Korean fashion (ha ha) no one bothered to tell the foreign teacher (surely a vaguely insulting comment to the Koreans here). But looking around I noticed the other teachers weren't wearing purple. Whew.

Still. Three. In purple. What are the odds!

Assuming 11 basic colors, the odds of three teachers wearing purple you would think is 1/11 x 1/11 x 1/11 = 1/1331. That will happen once in about 4 years!

My colors:

1 Red
2 Blue
3 Green
4 Yellow
5 Pink
6 Orange
7 Purple
8 Black
9 White
10 Brown
11 Khaki

(I'm a man and I do not recognize other colors. There is no fuschia in my brain. You're lucky to get a khaki concession out of me. Sorry, that's the way men are wired.)

But wait. There are 12 teachers in the teacher room. The odds that those specific three teachers would all wear purple on that day is about .08% But what are the odds any of the three teachers would wear purple that day?

We have to examine all the possible permuations.

The odds teacher 1 2 & 3 wear purple 1/1331.
The odds teacher 1 2 & 4 wear puprle 1/1331.
The odds teacher 1 2 & 5 wear purple 1/1331.
...

The odds teacher 1 11 & 12 wear purple 1/1331.
The odds teacher 2 3 & 4 wear purple 1/1331.

...

The odds teacher 10 11 & 12 wear purple 1/1331.

The odds become additive. We have to check every possible combination of teacher. When we check every possible combination of teacher, there are 220 combinations, each with a 1/1331 chance of being correct. So the odds are really 220/1331. There's about a 16.5% chance, then, of 3 teachers wearing the same color that day.

{The easy way to find all the combinations is do =FACT(12)/(FACT(3)*FACT(9)) in your spread sheet or better use =COMBIN(12,3) }

This, of course, is a fussier figurin' of what are the chances in a class of, say, 30 two people will share the same birthday?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox

[midgic]

[SuperFly]

Soon, Kwangjuchickenman will be along to refute your numbers and add his own extrapolations.

[OiGirl]

I would go for 12 basic colors. Light blue is generally accepted to be a basic color by color theoreticians these days. Ask me more about the Latinate blue/azure color line.

[princess]

Surely something way more exciting happened today in the world's third largest city. God, I hope so.

[Delirium's Brother]

I wear purple everyday! So the odds are 1:1 for me. I am right now, in fact.

[Hyeon Een]

In Korea "crazy" people like purple. Keep an eye out on these nutjobs. If they didn't get you already.

[tzechuk]

I've always worn purple.. but my name tzechuk means purple flower (Chinese)... so I am partial to purple.

[davai!]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=p_81l4DXlwM

[mindmetoo]

[Kwangjuchicken]

[Kwangjuchicken]

[quote="mindmetoo"]Three teachers around me were wearing purple. The first three teachers I saw in the teacher room. At first I worried that it was some "wear purple day" and in Korean fashion (ha ha) no one bothered to tell the foreign teacher (surely a vaguely insulting comment to the Koreans here). But looking around I noticed the other teachers weren't wearing purple. Whew.

Still. Three. In purple. What are the odds!

Assuming 11 basic colors, the odds of three teachers wearing purple you would think is 1/11 x 1/11 x 1/11 = 1/1331. That will happen once in about 4 years!

[Kwangjuchicken]

[quote="Kwangjuchicken"]

[Hanson]

Here we go...

[Kwangjuchicken]

Of course. The title DID have a reason to get my attention.

"THREE.....

Ok. Here is a riddle. How can 1:05:05 become 3?