History Main / MillionToOneChance

** And so, TelevisionIsTryingToKillUs. The real-life lesson taught to all medical providers is summed up as, "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Unless you're in Africa.]] In other words, when a patient comes in with a set of signs and symptoms, start looking for the common sources of those signs and symptoms before you start thinking about weird diseases. From a patient care viewpoint, it makes sense; if someone comes into the ER with low blood sugar and altered mental status, starting immediate treatment for diabetic shock is almost always better than figuring out all the other strange ways the patient might have low blood sugar and AMS. The problem is that thanks to Hollywood and the news, "millions of diabetics averting catastrophe and remaining fairly healthy thanks to managed diet, exercise, insulin," isn't news, but "man dies of rare illness doctors mistook for diabetes," is. The public winds up WrongGenreSavvy, often thinking they have weird diseases rather than simple ones, or else expecting whole battery of tests when the answer is obvious from just a couple of blood tests and a quick examination. [[Series/{{House}} Dr. House]] hasn't helped matters much, and countless medical practitioners subtly curse that show (even if we're some of the biggest fans). So ([[EaglelandOsmosis should you be an American)]], yeah, you will likely know one person in your life with Tay-Sachs, Gauchier's, Huntington's, or something equally rare. [[http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_19.pdf Almost everyone]] else you know will die to cardiovascular disease, malignant neoplasms, kidney or mental diseases, liver failure, the flu, and the occasional accident, murder, or suicide.

*** There's also a discussion on the definition of probability here, where frequentists will claim the true probability is the same - we just calculated it incorrectly. Another group disagrees and has a different definition. But that's a separate discussion.
* Rare diseases deserve a mention here. It's true that there are diseases that affect only one in every 10,000 or 100,000 people, but it's also true that ''hundreds'' of these conditions have been identified, and there are almost certainly hundreds more that are as yet unidentified. So don't be shocked if you or someone you know is diagnosed with a rare disease - perhaps *that* disease is rare, but rare diseases in total affect a lot of people. Odds are you know or will know someone with one.

* An exception to the rule is perhaps worth mention here. [[http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/04/lhc-will-not-destroy.html One scientist]] has said that the Large Hadron Collider has less than a one in a billion * billion chance of destroying the world. Far more energetic events (meteoric impacts, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc.) take place on Earth on a regular basis. Yet the [[GenreSavvy invocation of this]] [[WrongGenreSavvy trope to real life]] makes that chance seem far scarier than it should. (The same scientist said, likely tongue-in-cheek, that one has a one in a hundred billion chance of spontaneously evaporating while shaving. It's probably less than that.)

** This was most likely misprinted, and should have been one in 10^billion*billion. That is, a one followed by a billion times a billion zeroes. Of course, this doesn't account for such things as it being physically quite easy to destroy the Earth, and all the physicists just forgot about those laws, along with many other highly unlikely but still much more likely possibilities.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Discworld}}'', Rincewind has to collect a number of {{Plot Coupon}}s (tattoo, sword that goes *ting*, secret identity, camouflage...), but not before determining, with the aid of Nobby, which ones would land his chance of success at exactly a million to one.

-->'''Vaarsuvius''': *sigh* And once again, Probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service Drama as would a copper-piece harlot.

* I guess this is sort of lampshading and subverting? In Covert Affairs at the end of season 1, Annie is [[spoiler: undercover in London and needs to lose a lot of money in a non-suspicious way so that she will not be allowed to the leave the country. She loses all her money playing craps, then takes out a loan for a few thousand dollars, and bets it all on snake eyes, which is of course very risky. She acts confident that she'll win but is secretly hoping she'll lose. The roll comes up snake eyes so now she has lots and lots of money. Now she has to look outwardly relieved, although internally she's freaking out because the whole point was to rack up massive debts. She bets it all on snake eyes again, and luckily this time, she loses.]]

** A rare ''aversion'' is in "Errand of Mercy". Kirk decides to break into the Klingon headquarters and kidnap the commander. Spock calculates very long odds against success. They get as far as the commander's office--and are captured.[[hottip:*:Because the Klingon Empire is a PoliceState, everyone--including the commander--is under constant surveillance. The commander's {{Monologuing}} is actually playing for time until Klingon security arrives.]] Kirk and Spock are only saved by the Organian DeusExMachina.

** I think in the Hitchhiker's guide universe, most probabilities are distinct (ie rarely do two highly improbable events have the same probability) which is why it's possible to specify the event you want to occur using a finite/infinite improbability drive. You induce all events with that probability, but usually there's only one or the side-effects of the others are trivial or at least benign. What's even more mindboggling is that the probability that a particularly notable improbable event will have a probability whose digits are particularly notable [[spoiler: such as Ford and Arthur being rescued / 1 over 2 to the phone number of the party where Arthur first met Trillian]] is itself a number which can be plugged into the drive.

*** [[FridgeLogic So how high is the probability nothing unusual happens?]]

* A running theme in the Literature/{{Discworld}} novels.

** In the very next book, Death informs the mages that Rincewind has exactly one chance in a million of returning from the Dungeon Dimensions. At this stage, the book doesn't even bother to remind the reader of the rule.

* In ''Film/RunLolaRun'', [[spoiler: Lola wins back-to-back spins at roulette on the number 20. Not exactly one in a million, but one in 1,369 -- A 0.073% chance of happening]].
** ''Run Lola Run'' is an interesting case. Because we see multiple outcomes of the same situation, they probably all happened. The other possibilities are just not shown.

* [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?"]]

* TheGamers gives us a twenty-to-one chance - mainly on account of there being no one-million-sided dice.

* ''Franchise/StarWars:'' "Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!"

* Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!

* Exploited in every episode of ''Anime/YuGiOh'', and all animes based on card games, for that matter: TheMagicPokerEquation is in effect.
** Actually, in most cases, the chances of a player "miraculously" drawing the card he needs at the right moment (a "topdeck" as some players call it) is one in 40, much better odds than a million to one.

[[folder: Video Games ]]
* In the original ''{{Half-Life}}'', Gordon is cheerfully reminded by his fellow scientists that ExplosiveOverclocking of their AppliedPhlebotinum is perfectly okay, because a "resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely". They also assure you that "[[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong nothing will go wrong]]"...

* In Jacqueline Carey's ''KushielsLegacy'' books, heroine Phèdre nó Delaunay is very frequently told (or admits herself) that her plans are madness and suicide. Yet, with the exception of a few UnwittingPawn moments, they always work.

* When dealing with continuous random variables (almost anything with an infinite number of possible outcomes), each individual outcome will occur with probability of one over infinite. Not one-in-a-million, almost zero-in-a-million. And always, one outcome ''always'' happens despite technically [[LiteralMinded being impossible]]. Hence the word ''almost''.

* When dealing with continuous random variables (almost anything with an infinite number of possible outcomes), each individual outcome will occur with probability of one over infinite. Not one-in-a-million, almost zero-in-a-million. And always, one outcome ''always'' happens despite techincally [[LiteralMinded being impossible]]. Hence the word ''almost''.

* When dealing with continuous random variables (almost anything with an infinite number of possible outcomes), each individual outcome will occur with probability of one over infinite. Not one-in-a-million, almost zero-in-a-million. And always, one outcome actually happens despite [[LiteralMinded being impossible]].

* ''DeathLands''. In "Crater Lake" Finnigan faces off with a sec man holding a laser pistol that's so unreliable it only fires one time out of every hundred. This makes Finnigan cocky. And dead.

* ''DeathLands''. In "Crater Lake" Finnigan is killed by a laser weapon that's so unreliable it only fires one time out of every hundred. This makes Finnigan cocky. And dead.

* Subverted in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''; Kyubey implies to Kyouko that [[spoiler: It's theoretically possible to make witch!Sayaka human again, but extremely unlikely that it would work. Kyouko tries it anyway...and fails, because there's no indication that it is possible either. There's just no evidence that it isn't.]]

** Actually a recurring theme in the WhenTheyCry [[TheVerse verse]]. In ''UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'', Kinzo relies on a huge gamble involving the epitaph to [[spoiler:give Yasu the headship and get them to forgive him]] as evidenced by the quote on top of the chapel: "You will only be blessed at a probability of a quadrillion to one. In the same [=EP=], Bernkastel tells Lion and Will that the chances of Lion existing in a fragment is about 1 out of 2,578,917. [[spoiler:And later on, cruelly reveals that in all those fragments, Beatrice/Lion suffers the same dead-end fate.]] [[{{Determinator}} Not that it stopped either Will or Lion.]]

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'' there's a special power called "Haki", one specific type called "Haoshoku Haki"(Color of the Supreme King) is said to be in one person per million, curiously the series have already shown seven.

** There's also the fact that the nature of the grand line means that it's basically been drawing and holding all the most powerful people in the world as a whole, so it makes sense that whatever portion of the world has this rare and powerful form of Haki, Most of them will be in the Grand Line.

This comes up most frequently when characters say NeverTellMeTheOdds, and occasionally when someone [[IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect makes a few calculations]].