tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 22 18:08:51 2004

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Re: Probability

De'vID jonwI' ([email protected]) 

De'vID:
>>How about <'eb> instead of <DuH>?

ter'eS:
>I don't get the sense of "probability" from {'eb}.

I don't really get that sense either, but between the following
two choices:

<DuH> "possibility, option";
<'eb> "opportunity, chance, opening",

I tend to prefer <'eb>.  If there were four equiprobable outcomes
(say a four-sided dice), I would think of it as <loS DuHmey> and
not <cha'maH vagh vatlhvI' DuH>; on the other hand, <cha'maH vagh
'eb> sounds okay to me, whereas <loS 'ebmey> sounds like I have
four chances (occasions) to throw the dice.  Neither word is really
a good fit for "probability".

ter'eS:
>Actually, I was discussing this with my son, and we both eventually
>agreed that the whole concept of assigning a probability to an
>event is very strange.  If I say, "There's a 99% chance of rain", I
>really mean that if I could somehow recreate the exact conditions of
>this moment, 99 times out of 100, it would rain.  But that's obviously
>an impossibility; you can never exactly recreate any set of atmospheric
>conditions.  So assigning a probability to an event is totally 
>hypothetical,
>and maybe not even something Klingons would do.

That depends on the event, doesn't it?  For simple events such as
the toss of a fair coin, you can certainly repeat the experiment
multiple times, or imagine the simultaneous flipping of an infinite
number of coins.

I used the example of the weatherman because it's a familiar example
from the radio or TV.  I guess it wasn't a good example.  (The
sentence that I really want to write has to do with an experiment
involving the polarization of light... but I didn't want to drag
that into the discussion! ;) )

ter'eS:
>What you are really doing
>is giving your degree of certainty that your prediction will come true.
>So, instead of the above examples, how about
>
>ghaytan SIS; HutmaH Hut vatlhvI' DIch vIghaj.
>
>In more technical uses, it may be shortened:
>
>yuQ paw' SIbDoH; vaghmaH Soch DIch.

Okay.  Now how would you say, "The probability of heads is
50%" or "The probability of rolling a 3 (on a four-sided
dice) is 25%"?

Using <DarSeq> for "coin", <nach 'ang DarSeq; vaghmaH DIch>
says that the certainty of heads showing is 50%, whereas
what I really want to express is that it has a 50%
probability of showing up (which I know with certainty).

--
De'vID

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