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>the Earth is fairly overdue (statistically as I understand it) for a major asteroid hit. What does this mean? Wouldn't the distribution of asteroid hits be es
by cycrutchfield 7y ago
>the Earth is fairly overdue (statistically as I understand it) for a major asteroid hit.
What does this mean? Wouldn't the distribution of asteroid hits be essentially memoryless? That is, the fact that we have not had one in recent history has almost zero bearing on the probability of one happening in the future.
- idlewords 7y agoOh, the asteroids, they remember. They remember and they do not forgive!
- Baeocystin 7y agoMaybe, maybe not. There could be potential ultra-long-period impactors that share a similar origin, and therefore a similar period. Or perhaps crossing the galactic orbital plane changes the odds. The question of periodicity of mass extinctions (and what, if any, causes there are) is a valid line of inquiry, although there are no clear smoking guns. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/the-next-mass-extinction/413884/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/the-next...
- JKCalhoun 7y agoI suppose like flipping a number of heads in a row to get a coin "ready for tails".
- MRD85 7y agoIf you're interested, the terminology is "independent" events, and you're correct.
- cycrutchfield 7y agoIndependence is not exactly the same as memoryless. In this case I was referring to something like a Poisson process.