• May 21, 2020
• math

Inspection paradox

The inspection paradox happens when the probability of observing a quantity is related to the quantity being observed. e.g.

• Average class size experienced by students will be larger than average class size reported by the school, because larger classes are over-represented.
• Average waiting time experienced by a passenger arriving at a random time will be longer than the 5 minutes for a bus that on average comes every 10 minutes, because passengers are more likely to arrive during the longer time interval.
• Mediocrity principle - “if an item is drawn at random from one of several sets or categories, it’s likelier to come from the most numerous category than from any one of the less numerous categories”, a philosophical notion to suggest that there is nothing unusual about our existence in the universe.

Links

• https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2018/09/13/waiting-time-paradox/
• http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html