Humans are just really bad at understanding just how big a number is when numbers start getting REALLY REALLY big.

We're not talking about lottery winning numbers here.

We're talking about:

Quote from: molecular on November 03, 2012, 07:45:18 PM

Ok, new data, will recalc everything:

probability of getting struck by lightning in any given year: 1/280000.
probability of taking a shit at any given point in time: 1/(60*24) = 1/1440 (assuming you take a crap every day and the actual process takes 1 minute)
probability of getting struck by lightning while taking a crap in any given year: 1/(280000*1440) = 1/1.47E11 = 2.48E-9
probability of taking a crap while being in a situation where being struck by lightning can actually occur = 1/1440 = 0.25 = 1.74E-4
probability of finding a collision: 1E-65
getting hit by lightning while taking a crap for how many years in a row is equally probable as finding a collision: log(1E-65) / log(1.74E-4) = 17.3

is my math roughly correct now?

If so, I can say: "Finding a collision is about as likely as being struck by lightning while taking a crap every year for 17 years in a row".

It just isn't going to happen as long as the numbers being generated are from a random enough source.

Now, what can happen, is that an operating system or wallet program can have a very inadequate way of generating random numbers such that they aren't truly random. Due to poor design, the program could fall into some pattern of numbers that initially seem random, but actually aren't. If that happens, then two people running the same program could potentially generate the same addresses.