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Birthday paradox?
Oct. 18th, 2015 05:41 pmVery often when I am flying through major hubs I meet my colleagues, ex-colleagues and lj friends. I think it is somewhat similar to birthday paradox, or a bit more complex.
I got ~600 connections in Linkedin, where ~20ppl are recruiters and most of the rest is ppl I worked with (mostly customers and ex-colleagues). May be there are ~400 ppl I know more that are not in my linkedin contacts. So let it be ~1000. May be up to 50 of them travel at a given day. I also not travel every day, may be ~10%. So it is 5 ppl I can potentially meet.
Not moving from timing domain to spatial. How likely is it to meet these ~5 ppl on a same flight or somewhere in the airport queues, where I quickly glance at thousands of other travelers? Should be well under 1% probability. Then why I meet someone on ~every 5th trip? (Including 2 previous trips in a row, where I met 1 ex colleagues and 2 colleagues).
P.S. I am not counting encounters with colleagues who travel for the same cause, that would not be fair.
May be just a confirmation bias..
I got ~600 connections in Linkedin, where ~20ppl are recruiters and most of the rest is ppl I worked with (mostly customers and ex-colleagues). May be there are ~400 ppl I know more that are not in my linkedin contacts. So let it be ~1000. May be up to 50 of them travel at a given day. I also not travel every day, may be ~10%. So it is 5 ppl I can potentially meet.
Not moving from timing domain to spatial. How likely is it to meet these ~5 ppl on a same flight or somewhere in the airport queues, where I quickly glance at thousands of other travelers? Should be well under 1% probability. Then why I meet someone on ~every 5th trip? (Including 2 previous trips in a row, where I met 1 ex colleagues and 2 colleagues).
P.S. I am not counting encounters with colleagues who travel for the same cause, that would not be fair.
May be just a confirmation bias..
