Saving private Three

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by fatty

That would be interesting to know, but I just wanted to make clear that I was assuming that the deaths of any two coalition soldiers were already given, as if God came down and said "okay, I'm going to choose two random soldiers to take up to heaven." If we have 168,000 coalition servicemen/women (source: wiki) and assume that one must die. Out of brother X and Y, each brother has a 1 in 168,000 chance of being the one to die. If brother X dies and another death becomes inevitable, then brother Y has another 1 in 168,000 chance of dying. But because brother X already died, you encounter compound probability and must multiply the odds like I said, since it relies on the first condition of brother X's death to be fulfilled. So the chances of two men from the same family dying is about 1 in 28,224,000,000. On the other hand, the chances of a third brother dying is a further 1 in 168,000 - bringing you to a pretty slim 1 in 4,741,632,000,000,000.

It's also possible I don't know anything.

Yes, but that doesn't mean the other guy would be safe now. His chance of dying is still 168,000, which is also the chance that all three brothers die if you know that 2 of the three are already dead.