3 ms·

I am always surprised at how often people who know each other randomly run into each other in an airport. I mean, what are the odds? I only had it happen once

by RajT88 5y ago

I am always surprised at how often people who know each other randomly run into each other in an airport. I mean, what are the odds? I only had it happen once, but it was nuts. A guy from my previous company I ran into randomly in Frankfurt while I was on my way to India. He lives in California, I live in Chicago. We were on the same flight to Bangalore. Our trips had nothing to do with each other, other than we both work in tech and were visiting tech companies. Neither of us traveled internationally all that often. I knew a half dozen folks with crazy "what are the odds" stories like that.

layer8 5y ago
It’s probably just a symptom of humans being very bad at estimating odds.
- Sirened 5y ago
  teenagers even less so. He's _twenty one_ and has been running the site since he was thirteen years old.
morsch 5y ago
Seems like a variation of the birthday paradox.
- layer8 5y ago
  Not exactly, because the scenario isn’t “any two people on the plane” but “me and another person on the plane”.
  - paxys 5y ago
    It is still not another specific person, but anyone you know, which is a pretty large set.
    - layer8 5y ago
      The birthday paradox is a paradox due to the quadratic odds. If you fix one person (yourself), the odds are only linear.
  - PheonixPharts 5y ago
    We can see the full paradox at work here. The parent clearly states: > how often people who know each other randomly run into each other in an airport. > I mean, what are the odds? This is explicitly stating "any two people" (and it's at an airport not a plane, so more people). But then follows up with changing the framing of question they're asking: > I only had it happen once, but it was nuts. The birthday paradox is only a paradox because we tend to think of birthdays in a very personal manner. So when we think of "any two people sharing a birthday" we immediately change this to "someone having my birthday", without realizing we've fundamentally changes the question we're asking.
    - layer8 5y ago
      The OP however isn’t surprised by the actual odds of any two people randomly running into each other, but by the fact that it happened to them or acquaintances. They actually don’t know what the odds would be for the whole airport or plane. With the birthday paradox, on the other hand, the thing that people are surprised about is not how often it happens to them, but the actual odds for a given group size of people.
      - projektfu 5y ago
        Yes, but if it happened to someone else, that person might be on here expressing surprise and OP would be amusedly reading it. I was in two classes where the birthday paradox was discussed, at different universities. Both times it was my birthday that was shared with someone else. What are the odds?
_moof 5y ago
Hub-and-spoke routing + "it's not a small world, it's a small social class/industry/demographic/what-have-you" + the tendency for industries to cluster geographically. And what are the odds people meet in the first place? Those exact same factors are what make folks run into each other again later. It would actually be weird if you never ran into people you know. >…Bangalore. Our trips had nothing to do with each other, other than we both work in tech and were visiting tech companies. Bangalore is a tech city, and you both worked in tech. That's how you ran into each other.
- RajT88 5y ago
  > Bangalore is a tech city, and you both worked in tech. That's how you ran into each other. I'll throw you another curve ball: He was working in the same complex, and we'd run into each other at lunch. The project he was there for was one I would have been assigned to, if I hadn't left our previous company. (I was the #1 SME for that bit of software) Therefore, I would have been the one sent there anyways that week, and been in that area. I actually confirmed this with my old boss.
- bduerst 5y ago
  Yep, and throw in that humans are just bad at estimating statistics. Like the birthday paradox: If there are just 23 people in a room, then there's a 50% probability that two people share the same birthday.
  - infiniteL0Op 5y ago
    What's the math behind this? And is this for day-month or day-month-year?
    - NavinF 5y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem This for day-month.
jacquesm 5y ago
When I flew a lot I would run into regulars and people that I knew at least a couple of times every year.
bombcar 5y ago
From what I read once, the chance is significantly higher than you expect, something like if you are in a major airport, there's a 50% chance someone you know is also at the same airport. This is because the group of people who travel often is surprisingly small, and so overlap will happen much more likely than you think.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
brk 5y ago
I ran into someone who had interviewed at my company, we were bot on an inter-airport shuttle in I think Berlin. He was based in CA, I was in MA, and we weren't really in the same industry (his knowledge base was tangent to what we did, thus the interview), and not traveling for the same event. Have had a handful of similar scenarios, seeing someone I know when we are in a far-away random place. I think it had to do a lot with I was traveling frequently at the time (200K miles/year), to all kinds of random places.
baby 5y ago
I actually ran many times into people that I know, in different parts of the world. The weirdest one was running into some French dude I had met skiing in France on a boat in Thailand. It's a small world.
tzs 5y ago
> I am always surprised at how often people who know each other randomly run into each other in an airport. I'm surprised at how few times I've run into people I know when out and about shopping or doing other normal daily activities. I live and work in a town with a population of around 11k. Coworkers live in that town, or one about 9 miles away with a population of around 22k, or one with a population of about 41k that is about 20 miles away in the same direction as that second town so the second town is in the middle. This area has one Best Buy, one Target, one Barnes and Noble, one Walmart Supercenter, one Office Max, one Staples, and one mall all located in the middle town except the Walmart Supercenter which is in the 11k town. There are a few movie theaters but the quality varies a lot and most people I know only go to 2 of them. In ~20 years these are the only times I've run into people I know which out doing ordinary things: 1. Two times I ran into a coworkers or former coworker at Best Buy. 2. One time at a gas station I saw a coworker getting gas at the same time. 3. One time I ran into a coworker while grocery shopping. 4. One time I ran into my dental hygienist while grocery shopping. 5. One time my doctor was having lunch at the same sandwich shop as me. I would have thought that in 20 years, with a pool of 2 or 3 dozen coworkers or former coworkers living in the area, I'd run into people I know a lot more often.
- jrumbut 5y ago
  Same, yet strangely enough I keep bumping into unexpected people in airports.
denton-scratch 5y ago
So I know this particular guy named X; naturally I'm astonished to bump into him randomly on a specific flight from Y airport. But I know 200 people, and I take ten flights a year, there are about 200 travellers on each flight, and such random bumpings don't happen more than once a decade. It's rather unlikely that I won't randomly bump into someone I know, on some flight, sooner or later. But when it does happen, I'll still be surprised.

by RajT88 5y ago

layer8 5y ago

It’s probably just a symptom of humans being very bad at estimating odds.

Sirened 5y ago
teenagers even less so. He's _twenty one_ and has been running the site since he was thirteen years old.

morsch 5y ago

Seems like a variation of the birthday paradox.

layer8 5y ago
Not exactly, because the scenario isn’t “any two people on the plane” but “me and another person on the plane”.
- paxys 5y ago
  It is still not another specific person, but anyone you know, which is a pretty large set.
  - layer8 5y ago
    The birthday paradox is a paradox due to the quadratic odds. If you fix one person (yourself), the odds are only linear.
- PheonixPharts 5y ago
  We can see the full paradox at work here. The parent clearly states: > how often people who know each other randomly run into each other in an airport. > I mean, what are the odds? This is explicitly stating "any two people" (and it's at an airport not a plane, so more people). But then follows up with changing the framing of question they're asking: > I only had it happen once, but it was nuts. The birthday paradox is only a paradox because we tend to think of birthdays in a very personal manner. So when we think of "any two people sharing a birthday" we immediately change this to "someone having my birthday", without realizing we've fundamentally changes the question we're asking.
  - layer8 5y ago
    The OP however isn’t surprised by the actual odds of any two people randomly running into each other, but by the fact that it happened to them or acquaintances. They actually don’t know what the odds would be for the whole airport or plane. With the birthday paradox, on the other hand, the thing that people are surprised about is not how often it happens to them, but the actual odds for a given group size of people.
    - projektfu 5y ago
      Yes, but if it happened to someone else, that person might be on here expressing surprise and OP would be amusedly reading it. I was in two classes where the birthday paradox was discussed, at different universities. Both times it was my birthday that was shared with someone else. What are the odds?

_moof 5y ago

Hub-and-spoke routing + "it's not a small world, it's a small social class/industry/demographic/what-have-you" + the tendency for industries to cluster geographically. And what are the odds people meet in the first place? Those exact same factors are what make folks run into each other again later. It would actually be weird if you never ran into people you know. >…Bangalore. Our trips had nothing to do with each other, other than we both work in tech and were visiting tech companies. Bangalore is a tech city, and you both worked in tech. That's how you ran into each other.

RajT88 5y ago
> Bangalore is a tech city, and you both worked in tech. That's how you ran into each other. I'll throw you another curve ball: He was working in the same complex, and we'd run into each other at lunch. The project he was there for was one I would have been assigned to, if I hadn't left our previous company. (I was the #1 SME for that bit of software) Therefore, I would have been the one sent there anyways that week, and been in that area. I actually confirmed this with my old boss.
bduerst 5y ago
Yep, and throw in that humans are just bad at estimating statistics. Like the birthday paradox: If there are just 23 people in a room, then there's a 50% probability that two people share the same birthday.
- infiniteL0Op 5y ago
  What's the math behind this? And is this for day-month or day-month-year?
  - NavinF 5y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem This for day-month.

jacquesm 5y ago

When I flew a lot I would run into regulars and people that I knew at least a couple of times every year.

bombcar 5y ago

From what I read once, the chance is significantly higher than you expect, something like if you are in a major airport, there's a 50% chance someone you know is also at the same airport. This is because the group of people who travel often is surprisingly small, and so overlap will happen much more likely than you think.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

brk 5y ago

I ran into someone who had interviewed at my company, we were bot on an inter-airport shuttle in I think Berlin. He was based in CA, I was in MA, and we weren't really in the same industry (his knowledge base was tangent to what we did, thus the interview), and not traveling for the same event. Have had a handful of similar scenarios, seeing someone I know when we are in a far-away random place. I think it had to do a lot with I was traveling frequently at the time (200K miles/year), to all kinds of random places.

baby 5y ago

I actually ran many times into people that I know, in different parts of the world. The weirdest one was running into some French dude I had met skiing in France on a boat in Thailand. It's a small world.

tzs 5y ago

> I am always surprised at how often people who know each other randomly run into each other in an airport. I'm surprised at how few times I've run into people I know when out and about shopping or doing other normal daily activities. I live and work in a town with a population of around 11k. Coworkers live in that town, or one about 9 miles away with a population of around 22k, or one with a population of about 41k that is about 20 miles away in the same direction as that second town so the second town is in the middle. This area has one Best Buy, one Target, one Barnes and Noble, one Walmart Supercenter, one Office Max, one Staples, and one mall all located in the middle town except the Walmart Supercenter which is in the 11k town. There are a few movie theaters but the quality varies a lot and most people I know only go to 2 of them. In ~20 years these are the only times I've run into people I know which out doing ordinary things: 1. Two times I ran into a coworkers or former coworker at Best Buy. 2. One time at a gas station I saw a coworker getting gas at the same time. 3. One time I ran into a coworker while grocery shopping. 4. One time I ran into my dental hygienist while grocery shopping. 5. One time my doctor was having lunch at the same sandwich shop as me. I would have thought that in 20 years, with a pool of 2 or 3 dozen coworkers or former coworkers living in the area, I'd run into people I know a lot more often.

jrumbut 5y ago
Same, yet strangely enough I keep bumping into unexpected people in airports.

denton-scratch 5y ago

So I know this particular guy named X; naturally I'm astonished to bump into him randomly on a specific flight from Y airport. But I know 200 people, and I take ten flights a year, there are about 200 travellers on each flight, and such random bumpings don't happen more than once a decade. It's rather unlikely that I won't randomly bump into someone I know, on some flight, sooner or later. But when it does happen, I'll still be surprised.