Birthday Paradox

Weekly I/O#32


Birthday Paradox: How many people do we need to have a 50-50 chance of at least two people sharing the same birthday? Only 23.

Article: The Birthday Paradox Experiment

Counterintuitively, in a room of only 23 people, the probability of at least two people sharing the same birthday is over 50 percent. Also, it only needs 60 people in a group to make sure that there’s a 99% chance of at least people having the same birthday. You can look up Wikipedia for a more detailed explanation or The Pudding to learn through an interactive experiment.

Thanks to Professor Juels for teaching this interesting paradox and Angelica Kosasih for sharing The Pudding website.


Want to learn 5 bite-sized cool things like this every week to understand the world better? Sign up below for my free weekly newsletter and learn together!

Weeklyio Banner

You might also like