re: Cashier at store told me one guy has spent $4000 on Powerball

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Recently my sister-in-law found out she was having twins, and her husband, an engineer, said, "there is a 2/3 chance of having a boy because there are three scenarios." I tried to explain that it's actually 3/4 (assuming 50/50 for each child), and he still looked unconvinced.

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Telling when order matters and when it doesn't can be subtle, though it really isn't here. An engineer ought to have been exposed to truth tables, which is the way to think about the problem. I'd be interested to hear how the 288'ers in this thread think about the lottery problem.