This Doesn’t Mean I’m Sharing My Cake!

In my Statistics and Probability college class, there are over thirty students in a six-row-by-six-column desk setting. The day starts with a fun lesson on the probability of two people having the same birthday, month and day only, not including the year.

A girl on the opposite side of the room says there’s no way that’s possible as there aren’t enough people. The professor tells her to watch and see. He goes up and down the columns of students, asking them for their birthdays and writing them on the chalkboard. When he gets to the second column and a student says their birthday, we hear a shriek come from the farthest side of the room.

The girl who had proclaimed disbelief earlier is now wide-eyed and has her hand over her mouth. “That’s my birthday!” she exclaims, and the class erupts in laughter.

I looked up the statistic and there’s a fifty-fifty chance with only twenty-three people!