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REWahoo · 02-24-2007, 05:40 PM

Jake46 posted on another thread that he is getting ready to retire in June. I want to pass along my congratulations to him for having the end beginning in sight, and I also want to note that he and I have something in common: we share a birthday and we are the same age.

Through the calendar feature of the forum software, I learned we were born on the same day and the same year. Jake46 is only the second person I've run across who shares both my birth date and year.

So how about others. Is this more common than I have experienced? How many of you (who aren't twins, triplets, etc. :

) have met someone who is exactly your age?

mickeyd · 02-24-2007, 05:48 PM

My Bday is November 7th and I can not ever remember meeting anyone that has ever admitted to having the same birthday. Is it possible that I'm the only one?

linkerbink · 02-24-2007, 05:51 PM

I had a friend in high school who shared my exact birthday. She's the only one I know of.

REWahoo · 02-24-2007, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickeyd

My Bday is November 7th and I can not ever remember meeting anyone that has ever admitted to having the same birthday. Is it possible that I'm the only one?

Not a chance.

From Wikipedia: "... given a group of 23 (or more) randomly chosen people, the probability is more than 50% that at least two of them will have the same birthday. For 60 or more people, the probability is greater than 99%, although it cannot actually be 100% unless there are at least 366 people."

So I take it your answer is "no"?

bosco · 02-24-2007, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo!

For 60 or more people, the probability is greater than 99%, although it cannot actually be 100% unless there are at least 366 people."
[/i]

367 people, actually

Lakerat Nomore · 02-24-2007, 06:58 PM

We moved into a new neighborhood last year. All the houses were completed and sold within a few months. I remember checking out the houses around ours during construction. You know checking on the extras that the new neighbors were putting in and such. I remember checking out the house several doors down and just loving everything in it and thinking I would probably love the new neighbors too. Well, at a neighborhood gathering shortly after moving in, I discovered that my new neighbor was born on the same day, same year, and at almost the same time of day. We both grew up in the North Texas area and lived in small towns as children. We are the youngest child of our families, both of us have two older siblings. Our personalities are a lot a like and our taste in home furnishings, clothing, etc. almost identical. It really has made me wonder if there really is anything to astrology!

Donzo · 02-24-2007, 07:07 PM

No same age......but my wifes BD is August 16th and mine is the 17th - no we don't forget to celebrate!

I did hire a new rep shortly before I retired that had the same B-day as me - she is 10 years younger,did not notice during the interview process.

bssc · 02-24-2007, 08:59 PM

I seem to have these clusters. My wife and I were both born in July. She is 3 days older than me and I don't let her forget it. Our mothers were also born three days apart in February (my dad was born in March but is still a Pisces like my mother.). We have lots of friends with birthdays in late February and early March and then a lot in July.

MooreBonds · 02-25-2007, 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo!

Not a chance.

From Wikipedia: "... given a group of 23 (or more) randomly chosen people, the probability is more than 50% that at least two of them will have the same birthday. For 60 or more people, the probability is greater than 99%, although it cannot actually be 100% unless there are at least 366 people."

Is it just me, or does that just not sound right?

60 randomly selected people, and the probability is greater than 99% that at least two will have the same birthday?

bssc · 02-25-2007, 01:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MooreBonds

Is it just me, or does that just not sound right?

60 randomly selected people, and the probability is greater than 99% that at least two will have the same birthday?

Check the article, 23 people come out to 253 attempts to match the birthday since each person is matched with each of the 22 other people in the group.

lazygood4nothinbum · 02-25-2007, 04:28 AM

my evil stepgrandmother supposedly shared my birthday. it was on this alleged day that i went to take her out for our birthday lunch that she revealed her love was just a ploy. so as to the shared birthday, i no longer believe even that. would be curious to see what her grave says. maybe i'll find it someday, check out the birthdate and do a little dance.

speaking of graves and shared dates. mom's very favorite aunt died right after 9/11. that was also the last time i was able to take mom out of florida. we had the funeral right after rosh hashanah and then i took mom into the city. we got within three blocks of the still smoking remains of the twin towers.

mom died 5 years later during sunset of rosh hashanah. i didn't realize at the time, but during the funeral my cousin reminded me that we buried her mom five years ago to the day from when we buried mine.

John Tuttle · 02-25-2007, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MooreBonds

Is it just me, or does that just not sound right?

60 randomly selected people, and the probability is greater than 99% that at least two will have the same birthday?

That is correct. This is called the "Birthday Paradox" and the Wikipedia article is pretty good. It's important to understand that it is if any two people have the same birthday, not that some person has the same birthday as some other given person.

This comes up in Hashing in computer science. The number of buckets corresponds to the number of days and the hash of the key corresponds to your birthday. It was always interesting to ask the class how many people you needed to get the probability over 1/2 that two would have the same birthday. The first guess was usually 180 or so. They were always surprised by the answer, and then of course since we had a roomful of about that many people we would try the experiment. Since it was probabilistic it sometimes worked and sometimes did not.

This is probably more information than anyone wants but this method is used to attack Message Authentication Codes based on hashing. See the above Wikipedia article

cute fuzzy bunny · 02-25-2007, 08:19 AM

My wife and I are only three days apart...she's older than me, the cradle robber!

Never ever met anyone else with the same birthday. Worked in some big megacorps too and never remember anyone getting a birthday bash or a bunch of flowers/balloons or anything like that on the same day.

Weird.

When was that Roswell crash again?

bssc · 02-25-2007, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny

My wife and I are only three days apart...she's older than me, the cradle robber!

When she was 40 and I was still in my 30s, I gave her grief for 3 whole days. Of course, it makes it hard for her to forget my birthday.

Quote:

Never ever met anyone else with the same birthday. Worked in some big megacorps too and never remember anyone getting a birthday bash or a bunch of flowers/balloons or anything like that on the same day.

In my megacorp, one of the programming team leads has a daughter who shares the same birthday as me. And one of the contract PMs has the same birthday as my wife.[/quote]

Quote:

Weird.

When was that Roswell crash again?

Around June 14th or sometime in the three weeks before July 8th, depending. Did you know that John Denver was born in Roswell?

cute fuzzy bunny · 02-25-2007, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bssc

When she was 40 and I was still in my 30s, I gave her grief for 3 whole days. Of course, it makes it hard for her to forget my birthday.

Indeed. And we got married exactly 7 days after my birthday, so its birthday/anniversarypalooza for two weeks, and then we're done for the year!

Gabe unfortunately got nailed with the b-day less than a month after christmas

bssc · 02-25-2007, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny

Indeed. And we got married exactly 7 days after my birthday, so its birthday/anniversarypalooza for two weeks, and then we're done for the year!

Gabe unfortunately got nailed with the b-day less than a month after christmas

My first marriage was on my friend's birthday and my first wife was six days afterwards. However, my ex-SILs would be sympathetic to Gabe. One was born on Halloween and the other (who was Jewish) was born exactly on Christmas.