The One when I Reached in a Skittles Bag


Thursday, April 17, 2008

Hi, my name is Paige Evans and I am a candy addict... "Welcome Paige!"

On Thursday January 26th, 2006 I reached into a bag of Skittles and pulled out five pieces of candy. I got one of every single color. Do you know what the chances of that are? (Seriously, if you can figure the math out, I will reward you with a bunch of free scrapbooking supplies!) I was so amazed by this phenomenon that I just had to take a picture.

Which reminds me of another funny happenstance. You probably had to be there for this one. My parents and I were at the movies and my dad asked my mom, "Can you hand me my drink?" "Sure....Uh, which one is yours?" Not looking at the drinks my dad replied, "The one with more." That's when my mom showed my dad the bottles. They both had the EXACT SAME amount of fluid. Two peas in a pod I tell ya... Malm's face is so red because she was crying from laughing so hard :)

4 comments

  1. The Chances would be the Number of Skittles in the bag (about 40 i think) divided by 5 (equals 8). Then you take that number's Factorial (e.g. 8! = 8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1 = 40320)
    So the chances are 1 in 40320 to get one of each color. if you feel this is a sufficient calculation then you can give the free scrapbook supplies to Tasha :) I could be wrong. I'm not completely sure, but Tasha Thinks I'm silly for trying to figure it out. Oh yeah I'm Tasha's Husband Roger.

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  2. Not to argue with Rog, but I would run a probability equation meaning that you have a 1/5 chance of grabbing each one. You then take that and multiply 1/5 x 1/5 repeated 5 times which would put you at a 1/3125 probability. Or a .032% chance of that happening. Now given the amount of skittles handfuls that I have observed you taking, I would imagine that you should experience that 12 more times in your life! :)... ;)

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  3. Who am I to dispute any of these claims because stats was my least favorite class in college. I approached the problem in a different way. The first dip into the skittles bag is free (40/40 of picking a color :-) ). The next pick, there are 39 skittles left, with 32 of them being a different color than the first one picked. There's a 32/39 chance you'll pick a different color. On the third pick, there are 24 skittles left out of the 38 that are a different color (24/38). On the forth pick, there are 16 out of 37 of a different color (16/37). On the last pick, there are 8 out of 36 of the remaining color (8/36). Multiple those together: 40/40 * 32/39 * 24/38 * 16/37 * 8/36 = .05 which means there's a 5% change of reaching into a bag of skittles and picking 5 skittles and grabbing one of each color.

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