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I would write something sensible-esque here but the I'm just not that sort of person - sorry!

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Competition Probability

Sunday last, my brother and I found ourselves wandering through Stanmore Common searching for deer at 7 o'clock in the morning. One thing led to another and before I knew what exactly it was I was doing, I found myself taking pictures of a magnificent stag. Anyway, we arrived back home and my brother said I should submit the photo to a competition. I told him the photo wasn't great. He agreed, but said that there was no harm in trying and I guess I couldn't really see fault in that. As it happens he managed to discover a Guardian competition whose deadline was the next day. So I hurriedly uploaded the photo and what not and then calculated my chances of winning. The way the competition works is that The Guardian will pick out the best 10 photographs and leave the general public to vote on the best one.
There are 1471 photographs in total but only 368 members. Assuming that the winning selection comprises 10 unique members (not only is this quite likely, but it also makes matters statistically simpler) and that the winning photos are picked at random (perhaps closer to the truth than we care to imagine, this assumption allows gives each photo the same probability of winning) what are my odds of being selected? Initially I thought it was 10/1471 but then I began to wonder if perhaps it were 10/368 (approx. 3 times as large). I am still puzzled by this somewhat contradictory statistic but once I have resolved this matter, you shall be the first to know.

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