But there's a problem - what happened was that someone met someone that they weren't expecting to that day. As it happened, it was a certain set of people in a certain location, but actually, if you meet anyone you haven't seen for ages somewhere where you didn't know they were going to be, you think - wow, what a coincidence. But how many people have you met in your life that you'd recognise and chat to if you bumped into them? Hundreds? Thousands?
A more realistic way to approach the problem is to say:
How many people were there out and about in London that day? Say, 3 million?
And how many of them were people who you would think it a coincidence to meet? Maybe 20?
So you're walking through a crowd of people of whom 1 in 150,000 is soneone who you would say - wow, fancy meeting you here.
Now, how many people's faces did you see that day, clearly enough to recognise them? On a busy day in London, say 5000 as a wild random guess. That would make the odds of meeting someone unexpected 1 in 30. Does it happen about once a month? If so, the numbers must be about right... If not, tweak until the odds are close to the number of days on average between highly unexpected chance meetings...
But there's a problem - what happened was that someone met someone that they weren't expecting to that day. As it happened, it was a certain set of people in a certain location, but actually, if you meet anyone you haven't seen for ages somewhere where you didn't know they were going to be, you think - wow, what a coincidence. But how many people have you met in your life that you'd recognise and chat to if you bumped into them? Hundreds? Thousands?
A more realistic way to approach the problem is to say:
How many people were there out and about in London that day? Say, 3 million?
And how many of them were people who you would think it a coincidence to meet? Maybe 20?
So you're walking through a crowd of people of whom 1 in 150,000 is soneone who you would say - wow, fancy meeting you here.
Now, how many people's faces did you see that day, clearly enough to recognise them? On a busy day in London, say 5000 as a wild random guess. That would make the odds of meeting someone unexpected 1 in 30. Does it happen about once a month? If so, the numbers must be about right... If not, tweak until the odds are close to the number of days on average between highly unexpected chance meetings...