boyznum1

7.3 septillion years of 100 shots every 5 minutes and ONE time on average during the 7.3 septillion years you should miss 100 in a row...and the numbers don't matter?Half a quadrillion times the age of the universe 'til the event is probably going to occur, and the numbers don't matter, because it could happen tomorrow?I don't know, at what point a probability is so low as that it should be considered zero...for all intents and purposes...as in, it is not likely to happen in your lifetime. Or put another way, it is not going to happen in your lifetime.

It actually does matter if you consider everybody who's ever played basketball. It actually becomes quite interesting when you explore the fact in all likelihood it has or will happen. Not my original question, but still an interesting outlook.

1. 0.5^100 = 7.8886091e-31[/size]

 

2. Yes[/size]

 

3. Yes[/size]

Let's say that the basketball player has a 1 in 3 success rate of throwing (the argument is the still the same even if its not exactly that)

 

So the probability of a hit for each throw is 1/3.

 

What you need to do is consider the probability of a miss = 2/3.

 

Suppose he takes 100 throws.

The probability of missing the 1st is 2/3

The probability of missing the 2nd is 2/3

 

and so on, so the probability of missing 100 throws is 2^100/3^100 = 2.4596544e-18

 

So as said above, in theory it is possible. This is true for any repitition of any event which has a probability of less than 1 (i.e. not certain)

Probably should have clarified, an average free throw shooter is about 70% from the free throw line.

According to the law of infinite probability, if you were to take a good basketball player and have them shoot 100 free throws an infinite number of times (ignoring fatigue) is it possible for him to eventually miss all 100. I am an assistant coach and had an argument with the head coach over this. Thank you.