Check your intuition: The birthday problem - David Knuffke
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13,668 Questions Answered
TEDEd Animation
Let’s Begin…
Imagine a group of people. How big do you think the group would have to be before there’s more than a 50% chance that two people in the group have the same birthday? The answer is … probably lower than you think. David Knuffke explains how the birthday problem exposes our often-poor intuition when it comes to probability.
Additional Resources for you to Explore
The actual origin of the birthday problem is not clear, however it was featured in the April 1957 edition of "Mathematical Games" in Scientific American, a long running series of mathematical puzzles that was authored by noted math/science popularizer Martin Gardner. There are many different presentations of the Birthday problem. Here’s an interactive model that allows you to determine the probability of a birthday match for different sized groups of people.
The Khan Academy has a video lesson on this problem. Visit this NPR link: Math Guy: The Birthday Problem for one last review!
The Khan Academy has a video lesson on this problem. Visit this NPR link: Math Guy: The Birthday Problem for one last review!
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Meet The Creators
- Educator David Knuffke
- Director Biljana Labović
- Script Editor Eleanor Nelsen
- Animator Kaitlyn Carroll
- Sound Designer Weston Fonger
- Associate Producer Jessica Ruby
- Content Producer Gerta Xhelo
- Editorial Producer Alex Rosenthal
- Narrator Addison Anderson
