In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

"Ron Garret" wrote in message
...
Yes it is, you just didn't read what I wrote very carefully. Pay
particular attention to the phrase "some time in your career."

Only if you're speaking of a hypothetical career prior to its start.

Obviously. If the career is over then one need not invoke probabilities
at all. Probabilities are only useful when discussing things whose
outcomes are not yet known.

That depends on what you mean by "the odds". The odds on any one play
are the same, but the cumulative odds of experiencing a win or an engine
failure *at some point in your life* goes up with every play/flight.

Define "cumulative odds". The word "cumulative" implies that you're talking
about the odds as the flight hours accrue. In that respect, your claim is
false.

The cumulative probability of an event over N trials is the probability
that the event occurs at least once in those N trials. In that respect,
my claim is true.

Specifically, if the odds of winning on a single try are P then the odds
of winning some time in your career are 1-(1-P)^N where N is the number
of times you play.

That statement is true only when you are calculating the odds prior to ALL
trials (flights),

Obviously we only care about the odds for the flights we have not yet
made. For the flights that we have made we already know whether the
engine failed or not.

and have determined the number of trials (flights) in advance.

No. That statement is true regardless of whether N is known.

It's not a useful calculation for the purpose of this discussion.

That is a matter of opinion.

No one knows before they've started flying how many flights they will make
in a lifetime.

That is not necessarily true. My mother, for example, knows exactly how
many flights in GA aircraft she will make during her lifetime: zero.
And just in case you're too dimwitted to extrapolate from this example
I'll spell it out for you: one can *decide* on the basis of this
calculation to stop flying after some number of flight because flying
more than that results in a cumulative probability of disaster that
exceeds one's risk tolerance.

rg