In any grouping of 23 people the chances of 2 people having the same birthday is 50-50 (just the date, not the date AND year) . For the complicated math here check this. I am making this statement just to put the rest of this story in some perspective at least mathematically. In a room of 57 the chances are about 99%.
In criminal profiling CSI techs test only part of the human genome. For that small sampling the chances are about one in two million that two people share that part they test for, and if you consider the entire instruction set for an unrelated person the popular notion is in the general population the chances are less than 1 in 1 billion. In reality the figure for a standard analysis will be greater than 1 in 10 to the power 14. In other words the chances of two people being genetically the same and not related are simply impossible or at least highly improbable.
This is where the story begins. About a year ago we had a person who started here in the studio. A very nice guy, a little skinny, definitely funny. As a function of my job I am in the studio a lot. I get a lot of time to talk with the studio production people while I work. After a few days of silent judging, as I always do, it was time to start talking to this kid; see what he was all about. Didn’t take long before we discovered we had a lot in common (liked the same shows, same humor, music, etc.) Wasn’t long before his recommendations for entertainment were simply not questioned. I hung out with his friends, girlfriend and various cats.
Last year this young man and a few friends and I go over to The Graduate in SLO to watch the Packers-Cowboys game which was on the NFL network. For those of you who don’t know, the NFL network had penetrated about 15 households nationwide at this time last year so we were stuck finding a place with a complicated satellite system to watch the game. Several hundred other people must also have had this problem, the place was packed. We sat in a group across from an older man and his wife, he recognized me and commented a short second later, ‘You two are brothers, right?’ Laughed off immediately, this moment would later become more interesting.
This young studio person would leave a few months later to go to a little more school up in the Bay Area. Not long after he left a mutual friend of ours told me, ‘You know you two have the same birthday?’ WHAT! I was shocked. Knowing that it would take a room of 57 people to ensure you’d share a birthday is one thing…but to find a person who shares your birthday, your tastes, and your look?
This person and I both enjoy the TV show LOST. We often joke that we simply ARE the same person just in some sort of time paradox (about 20 years). Since discovering this we have shared some stories and found that we have more shared experiences. Certainly we are NOT the same person, not genetically the same, and to even suggest he will have to walk through the path I plowed diminishes this person’s amazing potential.
What is great about the holidays is that people come home, this person did and we laughed heartily about it all. I warned him a blog about all of it was coming…
