[Tonytee]

I suggest you fasten your seat belts, because this situation will certainly knock you to the floor if you don't.

Today I decided to audit our bank accounts. My wife typically does the grocery shopping on Wednesdays. I got to the Point Of Sale transaction where she pays for groceries via a Debit Card issued to us through our Credit Union. I looked at last Wednesday's dollar amount and also today's dollar and I could not believe what I was seeing. The amounts were identical. I'll say it again, "The Amounts Were Identical." Now my vocation was as an Accounting Manager for over 30 years and I had never seen this type of situation before. It doesn't make any sense. Back to the facts. I brought the issue to my wife's attention, and she exclaimed that, that was what the totals came to. My way of thinking that means that she had to of purchased the exact same items, at the exact same dollar amount and at the exact same weight. Again, cannot happen, there is no number in existence that would even come close to calculating the odds against this type of event. I contacted our Credit Union and explained my dilemma and the Account Manger agreed with me that this just cannot happen. In fact, she was so incredulous that she went and invited the District Manager to join in the conversation, and they both agreed on the improbability of the event. My wife went ahead and rounded up today's receipt and eventually located last week's register receipt, and I thought, Ahaaa, the proof is in the pudding. I did a side by side comparison of every line item, discovered the weights were different, the prices were different, and guess what? The totals were exactly the same. I'll say it again, the totals were exactly the same. Needless to say, I am still waiting patiently to wake up from this nightmare. Many things on the receipt were the same or close such as the time she was checked out, and the employee name and number were also identical. I'm thinking it is unfortunate that the show, "The Twilight Zone" is no longer in production as this would be an excellent example for subject matter in addition to being "One For The Record Books." Now I have to go and look at the receipts again. Why? Because this simply just cannot happen. ) Thanks for viewing.

Regards,

Antonio

[MarkJerling]

Photos or it did not happen! :-)

[Tonytee]

Photos or it did not happen! :-)

I am not certain I understand your comment. You want to see photos of both receipts? Yes, of course it happened, I wonder why you ask me such a question.

Let me know and I will try to produce a copy of the receipts. Has often happens, the one receipt from last week was crumpled up and is loaded with wrinkles.

Thank you for doubting me.

Rgds,

Tony

[GalacticPhoto]

That is really odd as I had this EXACT same thing happen a few weeks ago from 2 different shopping trips. I didn't notice until I was looking through my card transactions and saw the two amounts being the same. Took forever for me to figure that out. And I did not have the same items at all, amounts of items were way off etc.

The Matrix is glitching.

[Tonytee]

That is really odd as I had this EXACT same thing happen a few weeks ago from 2 different shopping trips. I didn't notice until I was looking through my card transactions and saw the two amounts being the same. Took forever for me to figure that out. And I did not have the same items at all, amounts of items were way off etc.

The Matrix is glitching.

Oh yeah, I hear what you are saying. I am going to hang to these two receipts and perhaps I can donate them to a museum and they may keep them under glass. I still cannot believe it as I am someone who spent a career working with numbers and this incident stands out as just too weird. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Thanks for your comment.

Antonio

[BigMackCam]

I am not certain I understand your comment. You want to see photos of both receipts? Yes, of course it happened, I wonder why you ask me such a question.

Let me know and I will try to produce a copy of the receipts. Has often happens, the one receipt from last week was crumpled up and is loaded with wrinkles.

Thank you for doubting me.

Rgds,

Tony

Tony, Mark's not doubting you - he's injecting some humour. "Photos or it didn't happen" is a common response from some forum members when someone explains a problem or situation. Mark's comment was a play on that and I got a chuckle out of it. Honestly, he's the last person I'd expect to push anyone's buttons

[Tonytee]

Tony, Mark's not doubting you - he's injecting some humour. "Photos or it didn't happen" is a common response from some forum members when someone explains a problem or situation. Mark's comment was a play on that and I got a chuckle out of it. Honestly, he's the last person I'd expect to push anyone's buttons

Well, I see what you are saying. Although I greatly appreciate your intervening and smoothing things over, I do fail to see the humor in the phrase. That is to be expected being from different countries, cultures and all. Okay, no problem on this side of the pond. I have enough problems having to deal with Donald Trump. ).

Regards,

Antonio

[MarkJerling]

It's a common joke phrase Tony. Please don't be offended. It's most usually used when one encounters a seemingly impossible situation. In the same way, if you were to post an image of a car with a badly dented fender, someone is bound to say: "That will buff right out!"

[automorphism]

This is hardly unbelievable, and you can easily estimate the odds of it happening. I usually buy approximately the same amount of stuff each shopping. Not exactly, but say (for the sake of example), within the 80-100$ range. There are only 2000 possible amounts in that interval. Assuming the cost of your final shopping is uniformly distributed in that interval (and, any other assumed distribution will give a similar result), that means when I go shopping next week there is a 1/2000 chance that I will get the same amount. Suppose I go shopping 52 times per year (about once a week).

Then, the probability of not ever getting the same amount in that year is calculated by:

(1999/2000)*(1998/2000)* ... * (1949/2000)

Since, there are still 1999 amounts I can get after the first shopping that are different than the first, 1998 amounts after the second that are different than the first two, etc,..., and 1949 amounts after the first 51 shoppings. What is the product of all these numbers? 0.5123408. Therefore, if I follow the same procedure, in just one year there is a 0.5123409 probability that I *won't* get the same amount, so therefore, a 0.4876592 probability that I *will* get the same amount at least once in a year. That's at least - the probability of 0.4876592 includes at least one duplicate.

Now, it might not be in consecutive weeks. But with 52 weeks there are only 1326 pairs of weeks in the year, and 51 of them are consecutive. So about 3.8% of weeks are consecutive week-pairs. Therefore, if a thousand people conduct this experiment, you'd expect about 488 of them to get the same amount shopping at least twice in a year, and about 18 of them will have it occur in consecutive weeks.

It just seems unlikely to you because most people don't keep track of the exact amount they have spent.

Even if you change the numbers to make the range of amounts larger, with the millions of shoppers around the world, this type of thing happens all the time - just nobody notices.

[BigMackCam]

^^^ What's more, if an infinite number of monkeys randomly hit the keys of a typewriter, one of them would almost surely write that exact explanation

[MarkJerling]

This is hardly unbelievable, and you can easily estimate the odds of it happening. I usually buy approximately the same amount of stuff each shopping. Not exactly, but say (for the sake of example), within the 80-100$ range. There are only 2000 possible amounts in that interval. Assuming the cost of your final shopping is uniformly distributed in that interval (and, any other assumed distribution will give a similar result), that means when I go shopping next week there is a 1/2000 chance that I will get the same amount. Suppose I go shopping 52 times per year (about once a week).

Then, the probability of not ever getting the same amount in that year is calculated by:

(1999/2000)*(1998/2000)* ... * (1949/2000)

Since, there are still 1999 amounts I can get after the first shopping that are different than the first, 1998 amounts after the second that are different than the first two, etc,..., and 1949 amounts after the first 51 shoppings. What is the product of all these numbers? 0.5123408. Therefore, if I follow the same procedure, in just one year there is a 0.5123409 probability that I *won't* get the same amount, so therefore, a 0.4876592 probability that I *will* get the same amount at least once in a year. That's at least - the probability of 0.4876592 includes at least one duplicate.

Now, it might not be in consecutive weeks. But with 52 weeks there are only 1326 pairs of weeks in the year, and 51 of them are consecutive. So about 3.8% of weeks are consecutive week-pairs. Therefore, if a thousand people conduct this experiment, you'd expect about 488 of them to get the same amount shopping at least twice in a year, and about 18 of them will have it occur in consecutive weeks.

It just seems unlikely to you because most people don't keep track of the exact amount they have spent.

Even if you change the numbers to make the range of amounts larger, with the millions of shoppers around the world, this type of thing happens all the time - just nobody notices.

You seem to be real good with maths and probability! Can you help me with next week's Lotto numbers?

[automorphism]

You seem to be real good with maths and probability! Can you help me with next week's Lotto numbers?

Math can't help you win a lottery where you choose numbers at random. But, if I did have some mystical method to choose the winning numbers, you don't think I'd share it do you? haha.

[p38arover]

It's a common joke phrase Tony. Please don't be offended. It's most usually used when one encounters a seemingly impossible situation.

As Mark says, it's a very common phrase on the 'net.

I was about to post the same thing then saw he had beaten me to it.

[MarkJerling]

Math can't help you win a lottery where you choose numbers at random. But, if I did have some mystical method to choose the winning numbers, you don't think I'd share it do you? haha.

LOL! Yes, it's true that you never read in the paper: "Psychic wins the lottery"

[p38arover]

LOL! Yes, it's true that you never read in the paper: "Psychic wins the lottery"

We have Psychic Fairs near here. I wonder if they know I won't be attending?