christopherj comments on Yes, Virginia, You Can Be 99.99% (Or More!) Certain That 53 Is Prime - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (68)
I'm not sure that response works. Flip a fair coin two hundred times, tell me the results, then show me the video and I'll almost certainly believe you. But if the results were H^200, I won't; I'll assume you were wrong or lying about the coin being fair, or something.
H^200 isn't any less likely than any other sequence of two hundred coin flips, but it's still one of the most extraordinary. Extraordinariness just doesn't feel like it's a mere question of prior probability.
Getting 200 heads only in coinflipping is just as likely as any other result. However, it is of incredibly low entropy -- you should not expect to see a pattern of that sort (less bits to describe than listing the results). It's also impossibly unlikely as a result from a fair coin, compared to as a result of fraud or an unfair coin.