Thinking
I got to thinking about the Pepsi iTunes song giveaway. The codes are 10 digits long with 36 possibilities for each digit. So that makes roughly 36×10x9×8x7×6x5×4x3×2, or 130,636,800, possibilites. Pepsi says that they are giving away 100,000,000 songs, so shouldnt there only be 30,636,800 possible invalid codes? That gives you only about a 23% chance that you will randomly pick an invalid code. I think that those are pretty good chances! The main factor affecting this is that you only had that 23% chance of getting a valid code on day 1. By now a lot of those codes have probably been taken and the chances are significantly lower. Oh well, not like I wanted super duper free songs anyways.
Please correct any errors in my math or information, its so late.
March 27th, 2004 at 9:18 am
Steve, this IS MATHcaddy.com. Please check your work BEFORE posting anything.
You’re lucky that this time it looks right! (To me, anyway - but I haven’t done any math since I was seven.)
March 28th, 2004 at 4:19 pm
Sorry Steve. I’m assuming that you are correct in saying that there are 10 sets of numbers, and they could be 01 through 36. If that is the case, then the correct number of potential codes is 36^10, or 3,656,158,440,062,976 potential codes. This would give you a .000002735% chance of guessing a correct code… odds are not so good.
My math is correct, but my assumptions may not be. Please feel free to enlighten me if I am mistaken.
March 28th, 2004 at 6:59 pm
Darn! I felt so mathcaddy-like.
March 28th, 2004 at 7:02 pm
By the way, there aren’t 10 sets of numbers, there are 10 places for either a letter or a number. There are 10 numbers and the 26 letters of the alphabet for a total of 36 possible combinations per space.
March 28th, 2004 at 7:45 pm
Thanks, Eric! It’s great to have a math wizard on mathcaddy. We should get someone to carry around your math intelligence and we could call them a math caddy. But anyway, I have further resolved to not comment on any more math things discussed in the future, for to open my mouth — (fingers? keyboard? whatever.) — would only confirm my complete lack of math wizardry. That’s okay. I don’t mind being mathematically stupid. Whenever I need a mathematic heavyweight to weigh in, I’ll get my wife.
March 28th, 2004 at 8:07 pm
Wow! I’m honored that you consider me to be a mathematic heavyweight because I know that I’m a literary lightweight! I think Eric should continue as the math wizard on mathcaddy because I am not that interested in beating the odds in the Pepsi itunes thingymajigger. I do think it’s good for Adam and Steve’s math skills though:)