Written by Ion Saliu on September 26, 2002; revised October 2, 2002 (2 WE).
I was watching TV on September 11, 2002. It shall forever be a day of observance for as long as America is. It shall be the day marked as the beginning of the end for religion or the end of the beginning for unbridled Reason. For humanity and no-proof-ever mysticism collided that day as the dinosaur-extinction asteroid collided with the Earth three score and five million years ago. We was looking as if somebody had just pulled a joke on us. The Fox News reporters announced that, minutes before, New York lottery drew 9,1,1 as the winning pick-3 combination in their digit lottery! The news anchor exclaimed that it was incredible! He was looking in disbelief at the New York lottery website on his laptop. I was not shocked or hit by anything extraordinary. Nothing can shock me, I don't think so. Only Randomness is Almighty, therefore if something has a probability, that something will come out according to said probability.
There are a number of people who wanted to hear me say something about such an extraordinary event. I wanted to say something immediately. I didn't have underpinning data, however. I also knew that the motivation of the 9-1-1 lottery draw was humane in nature. It was never meant to hurt humans, but to bring out the best in humans, albeit by means of childish feelings. Thirdly, I was witnessing how 43 pairing-based strategies won around $20,000 in 100 draws in my lottery (while me writing super software superceding less super software)!
And I had the dream of a lifetime, so rare that only few humans can talk about it.
Is it plausible to draw '9,1,1' on September 11 in the US? Or, draw, '1,1,9' on 11th September in most parts of the world, outside the United States? The question is even more acute if considering that September 11 represents a memorable day in America. Let's look at reality cool-headedly. Almighty Number has no feelings, nothing we can change about it. Since this is a special event, I expect of myself to be as cool-headed as possible. I don't care what others' numbers are. I'll stick to my numbers.
There are many who swear by the textbooks of their schools. But they keep the formulae locked-up like in medieval castles. The formulae are kept separated from the real world. They were taught that the probability of an event is always the same. If the probability of a straight pick-3 lottery combination is '1 in 1000 or 1/1000', it is so till the end of time, regardless of conditions. If the combination '0,0,0' was drawn today, it has the same probability (1/1000) to win tomorrow. And if it wins tomorrow, it has the same likelihood to hit the day after, and the day after, and so on forever... Granted, nobody has witnessed a pick-3 combination hitting more than two consecutive drawings.
Well, the overwhelming majority of people have common sense. The most...common representation of common sense is looking at something outside our minds: Facts. We are always most satisfied with some evidence we can put our finger on.
We are faced here with two events. Each has a specific probability. The events must occur simultaneously. That is, a pick-3 combination must be drawn on and only on a date that can be expressed using the three digits of said combination. If today is January 11, the date can be expressed as 111. Only combination '1,1,1' can satisfy the condition. A combination such as '9,1,1,' drawn on 1/11 is not a success.
There are 365 days in a year. All 365 days (or 366 in leap years) can be expressed as 4-digit numbers. 01/11 or 11/01 as January 1 or 1 January. Several dates cannot be expressed as unique 3-digit numbers: October 01 to December 31. If we express October 1 as 101, the number is not unique; it was already used by January 01. Total dates that can be expressed as 3-digit numbers: 273 (January 01 to September 30).
I thought initially that such a condition can be calculated only and only by the product or multiplication of the two individual probabilities: n1/N1 * n2/N2.
It is not that I want to know the probability of a particular pick-3 combination to hit; e.g. the probability of '9,1,1'. What I want to know is the probability of '9,1,1' to hit on a day that can be expressed as '9/11' (in the US) or '11/9' (in Europe or elsewhere). In this case, the probability of the combined event must be AT MOST 1/1000 * 1/300. Or AT MOST '1 in 300,000'. Or the odds must be AT LEAST '300,000 to 1'.
The assumption was wrong. The date is not drawn, it is a given. The date is exactly what it is, not a random event. (In my philosophy, however, nothing is absolutely certain. But in this case we are free to assume that the probability of the date is 1 or 100%.) There would be a totally different case to:
1) guess correctly a date (from 1 to 365; p=1/365) AND _
2) guess correctly a pick-3 combination (from 1 to 1000; p=1/1000).
The probability of the combined event would be 1/365 * 1/1000.
I realize now that formula was wrong. The odds were far higher than in reality. I've been successful in writing a computer program that simulates EXACTLY dates and pick-3 combinations. The program is available as freeware from the Download Site: DatePick3.EXE.
DatePick3.EXE has two functions: generate dates in one column; generate pick-3 combinations in the second column. The dates follow the US format: 'month/day'. The dates start at 101 (January 1) and end at 1231 (December 31). The program does not consider the leap years. The program runs continuously in cycles of 365 days, until the user stops the execution (pressing X or the function key F10). The date-combination lines are saved to disk. The output file can be very large. The file looks like:
101 093
…
1231 345
The second function opens the output file and records all occurrences when the date and the pick-3 combination are equal. Thus, only the 911-on-September-11—type of occurrences are counted.
I ran DatePick3.EXE lottery software many times. The program generated and checked millions of pick-3 combinations and dates. There are occurrences of date-equal-to-the-combination. The probability of such patterns is not 1/1000; it is closer to 1/1337. The difference is caused by the dates that can be expressed only as 4-digit numbers. There are 273 dates between 101 and 930 that can be expressed as 3-digit numbers. Therefore 365/273 * 1000 = 1337 to 1.
I checked also the pick-4 drawings against the dates. The new free program is DatePick4.EXE. It looks clear to me that the probability of a pick-4 combination to match its date is 1 in 10,000. The program DatePick4.EXE can generate at least 200,000 date-pick 4 combinations per minute. Let the program run until it generates 1,000,000 lines. Run it several times and calculate the average odds.
The major question still remains. Drawing a pick 3 combination on a very special date such as 9/11 will always lead to controversy. We have no choice but singularize on such rare occasions. It is not that there are 273 pick-3 combinations that match their dates expressed as 3-digit numbers. It is selecting EXACTLY one pick-3 combination on an EXACTLY one particular date. The odds of accomplishing that are significantly higher! There are two easy ways to accomplish the feat. Have all the lottery ball in the drawing machine #1 read 9; all the lottery ball in the drawing machine #2 read 1; all the lottery ball in the drawing machine #3 read 1.
Or, repeat the drawing until 9,1,1 comes out…
This thread deals with randomness and its favorite patterns. We started with lotto combinations in the category 1,2,3,4,5,6. We saw why it is mathematically infrequent.
We also realized that there are no regular shapes in nature or in the Universe. The perfect shapes, or geometric patterns are the creation of self-aware intelligence. Only the humans possess self-aware intelligence. If the humans were created by the gods in their image, the entire Universe would be regularly shaped for the most part. Most planets would be perfectly spherical, most mountains would be in the shape of perfect pyramids, most rivers would flow in perfectly straight lines. But that's not the case. It's not because the gods do not possess intelligence; it is so because there are no gods!
We also analyzed the possibility of geometric or regular patterns on lotto play slips, cards or grids. Such shapes (Koffotzuntz patterns) do not occur. The real lotto draws plot randomly irregular patterns on lotto play slips, cards or grids.
There would be yet another thought to ponder. What is the probability for a person to dream of dying and then dying, really, and soon? I would say the odds are high; much higher than just the odds of passing away according to various statistics. I just saw a documentary on the American Civil War. The last entry in one soldier's diary (1864):
”I was killed. ”
Well, the battle was so bad that the probability of being killed was close to certainty for the unit under attack.
The motivation behind the '9,1,1' drawing was plenty humane. Yet, I can't defeat my strong curiosity to know exactly what happened behind the scene… I revised my opinion with no pain whatsoever. Everybody should do the same thing. The Truth is not part of our being. The Truth is always above any human.
”For only Almighty Number is exactly the same, and at least the same, and at most the same, and randomly the same.
Only Randomness is Almighty. Randomness is Great.”
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