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Ask HN: Probability of 4 consecutive people “randomly selected” on US airport?
Recently me and my friends were traveling back to US and we were traveling as a group. All 4 of us were so called "randomly selected" for extended inspection. It was hilarious for the person handing us over the boarding pass and just a hassle for us (we were already tired). Later that made me wonder; what is the probability of 4 consecutive people getting selected? I am not really good at this stuff so I was wondering if somebody can actually calculate the probability (or will it even make sense?).
- ColinWright 9y agoIf selections are independent, and 1 in every 10 person is chosen, then the chances of a specific four people being chosen is (1/10)^4, or 1 in ten thousand. But those assumptions then need to be examined. In a day, many many more than then thousand people will pass through a given moderately busy terminal, so the chances of there being an event of four-in-a-row is almost certain. The total numbers might be more than 1 in 10, and certainly they are not independent. Short answer - it's complicated, and it's pretty sure that you won't be able to compute it with any degree of certainty. And I'll bet it's not random, either.