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Created February 28, 2012 16:24
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What are the odds of pulling 3 1984 quarters out of a pile?
"Picked up 3 quarters from my spare change pile. They were all from 1984. What are the
chances?!?!" [http://d.pr/9Trc]
So first, we need to figure out how many quarters in any given pile should be dated 1984.
Let's say that there are 65 billion quarters in circulation at the moment [1] and that
there were 1.2 billion quarters minted in 1984 [2].
That means that 1.85% of the quarters in a given pile should be quarters with the date
1984. [1.2/65 = 1.85%]
Assuming an absurdly large pile of 1000 quarters, 18.5 should be dated 1984. We'll
drop the .5 and call those the coins taken out of circulation between 1984-2012.
Now it's time to pick the quarters.
The first pick has a 18/1000 chance of getting an '84 coin.
Second, 17/999.
Third, 16/998.
18 17 16 = 4,896 / 4896 = 1
1000 999 998 = 997,002,000 / 4896 = 203,636
So what are the odds of pulling 3 1984 quarters out of pile? My best guess is 1 in 203,636.
Give or take.
[1] http://www.fluther.com/25214/how-many-us-quarters-exist/
[2] http://www.coincommunity.com/us_quarter_dollars/washington.asp
(676,545,000 + 546,483,064 = 1,223,028,064.)
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