There are 50000 meteors a year and multiple livestreams of active volcanoes, I was thinking the odds aren't that low. Asked Gemini and it turns out the odds are even higher than I thought.
I can also play that game but without being a dullard:
Q: What are the odds of a stream of an erupting volcano catching a very visible meteor in the background of the footage while taking into consideration that the footage is just fitting the volcano in view. The volcano takes up approximately 75% of the frame. It happens while the volcano erupts. The statistics show that the volcano erupts once every 6.5 years.
A: If we combine all the constraints:
- the volcano only erupts about once every 6.5 years,
- someone is actively filming during the eruption,
- the volcano fills ~75% of the frame,
- a clearly visible meteor appears in the remaining visible sky,
- and it’s visible enough to stand out in the footage,
then you’re stacking several rare events together.
A rough probabilistic breakdown might look like this:
* Eruption timing
Already rare:
- 1 eruption every 6.5 years
- Nighttime visibility
- Meteors are mostly meaningful at night, so immediately you lose roughly half the opportunities.
* Meteor occurrence during filming
For a short eruption clip with only 25% sky visible:
∼1 in 10⁵
to 10⁷
is a plausible order-of-magnitude estimate.
* Meteor being dramatic and noticeable
Many meteors would be too dim, too short, or mistaken for sparks/ash.
So the combined odds for a specific eruption event being captured with a very visible meteor in that constrained frame could plausibly fall somewhere around:
I can also play that game but without being a dullard:
Q: What are the odds of a stream of an erupting volcano catching a very visible meteor in the background of the footage while taking into consideration that the footage is just fitting the volcano in view. The volcano takes up approximately 75% of the frame. It happens while the volcano erupts. The statistics show that the volcano erupts once every 6.5 years.
A: If we combine all the constraints:
- the volcano only erupts about once every 6.5 years,
- someone is actively filming during the eruption,
- the volcano fills ~75% of the frame,
- a clearly visible meteor appears in the remaining visible sky,
- and it’s visible enough to stand out in the footage,
then you’re stacking several rare events together.
A rough probabilistic breakdown might look like this:
* Eruption timing
Already rare:
- 1 eruption every 6.5 years
- Nighttime visibility
- Meteors are mostly meaningful at night, so immediately you lose roughly half the opportunities.
* Meteor occurrence during filming
For a short eruption clip with only 25% sky visible:
∼1 in 10⁵
to 10⁷
is a plausible order-of-magnitude estimate.
* Meteor being dramatic and noticeable
Many meteors would be too dim, too short, or mistaken for sparks/ash.
So the combined odds for a specific eruption event being captured with a very visible meteor in that constrained frame could plausibly fall somewhere around:
[b]1 in millions to hundreds of millions[/b]
...fucking idiots
I did mean shocktrooper. I think it takes a special kind of autism to go in and "akshully" something as innocent as this just to bring one down and nothing else.
I was just akshullying around, no malicious intentions behind this
And from the looks of it Frant managed to out-akshully me in a very spectacular fashion
It is very impressive looking I admit
(cracks knuckles) Never fear, Captain pedantic statistics is here!
We are forgeting the total time filmed aspect of the video, and are framing it in the window of time the video length is. Not the total filmed time, which changes the chances down exponentially:
People are framing the odds around the length of the clip, but that’s the wrong window. This wasn’t “some guy happened to hit record.” It was a livestream/monitoring camera already pointed at Mayon while it was erupting for months.
So the volcano part being recorded, is basically 100%. The camera was already there and volcano always there. So it can be ingored for the math but fair to point out for the context of the chances. 1 of the 2 things was a 100% chance of hapening in the video.
'Fermi estimate' is perfect for this:
For the fireball:
A very bright one might be around 1 per 200 observing hours for sky watchnig people.
(So standing anywhere, outside, rouhgly every 200 hours of sky watching you will see one of these happen)
But the camera only sees a slice of sky, and for the shot to look this good, it has to pass near/over the volcano. Say that “dramatic alignment” is about 0.1% to 1% of the total visible sky behind the volcano in frame. rough horizontal FoV of total sky captured? 8–12 degrees (500–750 arcminutes wide) of the theoretical 180 degrees sky visible of flat terrain
(VERY ROUGH GUESS, we are working with rough estimates, ballpark end result, if will within a magnitude is close enough with such large numbers)
So per camera hour:
1/200 × 0.001 = 1/200,000
1/200 × 0.01 = 1/20,000
So one camera, one hour: roughly 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 200,000.
But now add time.
If Mayon was watched for ~140 nights, 8 useful night hours each, with half usable due to weather (guesstimating):
140 × 8 × 0.5 = 560 useful camera-hours
With two livestreams:
560 × 2 = 1,120 camera-hours
So for dedicated webcams watching for months, I’d call it roughly 1 in 20 to 1 in 180 (we ARE working in guessings so best to worse range). Rare, but very believable.
BUT looking at it as if someone pulled out a camera, filmed 10 second and HAPPEN to catch it?
For a random person filming a 10-second phone clip? (As if the clip just happen to be the ONLY time recorded)
10 / 3600 = 0.00278 hours:
That gives the roughly 1 in 7 million to 1 in 72 million odds.
So the “impossible” part mostly disappears once you stop treating it like a 10 second random recording and start treating it like months of continuous footage from cameras already aimed at the volcano.
--
The odds of a bright meteor happening somewhere in the sky over Mayon during months of monitoring were actually pretty high.
So the 1-20 to 1-180 part wasn’t the meteor existing, it was that the camera happened to be aimed at the small slice of sky where it crossed dramatically over the volcano.
Spoiler:
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
The odds of simultaneously capturing an active lava eruption and a meteor exploding directly within the same camera frame are roughly \(1\) in \(70,000\) to \(1\) in \(250,000\) per given night. It is incredibly rare, though a few real-world examples (like the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines or Klyuchevskaya Sopka in Russia) have captured both.
Calculating these odds involves multiplying the independent probabilities of overlapping events. The generalized math formula is as follows:\(\text{Probability}=P(\text{Eruption})\times P(\text{Visibility})\times P(\text{Meteor})\)1. Probability of an Active EruptionOnly about \(20\) to \(30\) volcanoes are continuously erupting worldwide on any given day.Factoring in the limited night hours, weather constraints (clouds), and the danger zones for filming, the window of a clear, erupting shot is low.Odds of an eruption in any targeted, filmable zone: \(P(\text{Eruption}) \approx \frac{1}{100}\) per day.2. Camera Field of View (FOV)A localized webcam or camera has a constrained field of view, typically scanning about \(20\) square degrees of the sky.The entire night sky is roughly \(20,000\) square degrees.Your camera's visual constraint: \(P(\text{Visibility}) = \frac{20}{20,000} = \frac{1}{1000}\).3. Probability of a Meteor StrikeThere are about \(50,000\) visible meteors that hit the Earth's atmosphere every year, but most are tiny and imperceptible.A brightly lit meteor (bolide) that creates a noticeable "explosion" across the sky over a specific geographic area happens a few thousand times per year.Odds of a meteor exploding in your localized 1/1,000th of the sky during any specific night: \(P(\text{Meteor}) \approx \frac{1}{2,500}\).4. The Final CalculationUsing the standard rules of probability, multiplying these figures yields an estimation for capturing both events concurrently in a single un-planned frame:\(\text{Odds}=\frac{1}{100}\times \frac{1}{1,000}\times \frac{1}{2,500}=\frac{1}{250,000}\)While a dedicated photographer can increase their odds (e.g., leaving a shutter open on time-lapse mode during a meteor shower), the exact mathematical odds of perfectly aligning a volcano eruption and a meteor strike in the same shot on any given night are approximately \(1\) in \(250,000\).
copy pasta google and nope i wouldnt pay for this semi improved google
my search : what are the odds of a camera catching a volcano eruption of lava and catching a meteor strike hitting explosion in the same shot and give me the calculations
see if u get same results and get the better layout. didnt use gemini but i guess it uses it automaticly even if i just type it in chrome search
The odds of simultaneously capturing an active lava eruption [..]
You are still framing teh question wrong.
They didn't 'happen' to catch volcano eruption. They was filming it for 3 month. The chances, of catching a video of a erupting volcano, by pointing a webcam at an erupting volcano, is 1 to 1.
Its like asking what are the chances of me catching a meteor while filming a bird, or the moon, or my car, or a tree. The chances of catching 'that thing' I am filming is 100%, it's what I am filming. so it doesn't apply to the chances equation, only the meteor does.
Think of it like this. One of those meteors happen about every 200 hours. Anywhere on earth, look at the sky, and roughly every 200 hours you will see one.
SO, the question is based around: If I am filming for roughly 200 hours, what are the chances of filming it happening? The chances are whatever percentage of the sky your camera covers. It HAPPENED, just was you pointing at that one?
They filmed 33600 hours of part of the sky behind the volcano..
SO around a dozen bright meteors happened, in that time, in that sky (140*24/200). The 'chances' comes in simply if they was pointed in the direction one happened. The volcano erupting does not changes the chances of meteors.
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
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