(March 29, 2009 at 9:03 pm)Tiberius Wrote: No I don't, but when I did I picked non-consecutive numbers, mainly because I simply liked the numbers or they were relevant to me. Like I said, people are pre-disposed to certain things, and we tend to think (wrongly) that some number sequences are less likely than others. Putting it like this though, it makes you think: A consecutive sequence is only meaningful to us because we put meaning to the numbers, and that meaning is order. A random lottery machine knows nothing about the numbers (it has no idea there are even numbers on the balls) and it has no pre-disposition. If it were to think, it wouldn't put any difference between the numbers 1,2,3,4 and the numbers 23,4,8,17.
The fact that the machine just picks balls is why I think the odds are the same for any 6 numbers selected.
BUT, does probability enter the equation i.e. it sounds more improbable that a consecutive sequence will pop up?
As far as I know, such a sequence has never popped up.
A man is born to a virgin mother, lives, dies, comes alive again and then disappears into the clouds to become his Dad. How likely is that?
