Trying to figure out what could possibly be the practical application of this problem, I can see only two possibilities:
  1. You need some event to fire with a probability of 2**-32. If that's the case, just use a real RNG rather than peeking into memory.
  2. Having two adjacent memory locations XOR to zero unexpectedly is an error case, and you want to know whether it's likely that'll happen by chance so you can decide whether to check for the error ahead of time. If that's the case, just check for the error. Error checking builds character. ;)

In reply to Re: (OT): Probability problem by bellaire
in thread (OT): Probability problem by Anonymous Monk

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