ABC News: The 9-11 Lottery Coincidence

ABC News: The 9-11 Lottery Coincidence: "Oct. 6  Everything's connected: the attacks on America last year, the New York State lottery, the collapse of WorldCom, the Bush Administration's proposed war against Iraq, the death of quarterback Johnny Unitas, and many other private events. To top this off, Arthur C. Clarke anticipated some of these incidents decades ago.

Let me back up a bit. On Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002 — 9/11/02 — the New York State lottery numbers were 911, an eerie coincidence that set many people to thinking or, perhaps more accurately, to not thinking.

A natural question comes to mind: How likely is this? After all, the lottery took place in New York state on the anniversary of the mass murder exactly one year before.

These factors are not relevant, however. On any given day, each of the 1,000 possiblities — 000, 001, … 233, …, 714, …, 998, 999 — is as likely to come up as any other. This is true of Sept. 11 as well, so the probability that 911 would come up on that date is simply 1 in a 1,000. This probability is small, but not minuscule."