About experimental execution: You are doing a taste test experiment on your classmates for their ability to taste

Question

or not to taste a particular water-soluble, colorless chemical. You set out 30 identical cups, and pour the test solution into each one, half-filling the cup. The class time comes, and you are about to run your experiment, but you count your samples again and discover that there are 31 filled cups. You are reasonably certain that you counted 30 cups out originally (though there were more in the package).

What is the probability that one of your classmates receives a different sample material than you intended?

Answer 1

All right now.

If you started calculating probabilities, shame on you!

As an experimenter and a scientist, you must be certain and honest about what you do (it's not a bad idea elsewhere in life, too).

If there appeared an extra sample, or a sample went missing, and you can't immediately assign a cause, it would be unethical to continue with your plans. Who knows who is messing with your stuff?

The correct and safe thing to do would be to 'fess up, dump them all and dispose of those cups, and re-set up.

And the probability that someone gets something unintended, should be ZERO.

Enough said?

-- Cheers, --Mr. d.