<story><title>What has a 1 in a million chance? (2010)</title><url>https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/Real-World/million.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Scarblac</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;-- Terry Pratchett&lt;p&gt;Making fun of the fact that if someone says &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s a million-to-one chance, but it might just work!&amp;quot; in fiction, you know it&amp;#x27;s going to work.&lt;p&gt;In _Guards! Guards!_ this is taken to the point that they reckon that it&amp;#x27;s not enough to hit the dragon with the arrow at the soft spot, they also have to try a whole bunch of improbable circumstances to get the chance to exactly 1 in a million. Because exactly 1 in a million is hard to achieve, as the article shows.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TomK32</author><text>The cheese-loving aviators have the Swiss-cheese-model to visualize how small unimportant errors can stack up to a catastrophic outcome. Though in my opinion there&amp;#x27;s a flaw in this thinking as no sane cheese seller would shuffle their layers of cheese after cutting them: Hence 1-in-million chances happen all the time. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.aviationfile.com&amp;#x2F;swiss-cheese-model&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.aviationfile.com&amp;#x2F;swiss-cheese-model&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>What has a 1 in a million chance? (2010)</title><url>https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/Real-World/million.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Scarblac</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;-- Terry Pratchett&lt;p&gt;Making fun of the fact that if someone says &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s a million-to-one chance, but it might just work!&amp;quot; in fiction, you know it&amp;#x27;s going to work.&lt;p&gt;In _Guards! Guards!_ this is taken to the point that they reckon that it&amp;#x27;s not enough to hit the dragon with the arrow at the soft spot, they also have to try a whole bunch of improbable circumstances to get the chance to exactly 1 in a million. Because exactly 1 in a million is hard to achieve, as the article shows.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eesmith</author><text>See also &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wiki.lspace.org&amp;#x2F;Million-to-one_chance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wiki.lspace.org&amp;#x2F;Million-to-one_chance&lt;/a&gt; and more generally &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tvtropes.org&amp;#x2F;pmwiki&amp;#x2F;pmwiki.php&amp;#x2F;Main&amp;#x2F;MillionToOneChance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tvtropes.org&amp;#x2F;pmwiki&amp;#x2F;pmwiki.php&amp;#x2F;Main&amp;#x2F;MillionToOneChan...&lt;/a&gt; .</text></comment>