Question

An AP news service story, printed in the Gainesville Sun on May 20, 1979, states the following with regard to debris from Skylab striking someone on the ground: "The odds are 1 in 150 that a piece of Skylab will hit someone. But 4 billion people ... live in the zone in which pieces could fall. So any one person’s chances of being struck are one in 150 times 4 billion—or one in 600 billion." Do you see any inaccuracies in this reasoning?

Answer 1

• The odds are one in approximately 27 million.
• Not one in 600 billion

Explanation:

From the news story, we are told that:

The odds are 1 in 150 that a piece of Skylab will hit someone.

However, 4 billion people live in the zone in which pieces could fall.

Therefore, any one person’s chances of being struck are:

`=(1)/(150) * 4$ billion\\=(1)/(37.5)$ billion\\\\=26,666,667 million`

Therefore, the odds are one in approximately 27 million.

The inaccuracy presented in this reasoning was that the odds are one in 600 billion.