Back on topic… For all gems including the dreaded talasite, there is a cut gem, if not 5 or 6 cuts, that are worth more than the material itself (which is a weird thing for professions). Taking it that a step further, if you’ve unlocked the alchemy lab with SSO, epic gems are also worth quite a bit more cut than uncut. I estimate there could be opportunities to make huge PROFIT margins (35G and up, possibly even 125G) per gem just from cutting the material.

The probabilities are based off of exactly four prospects. Imagine a coin being flipped. 50% and 50% are our two probabilities, but if we flip it twice, we have three possible outcomes, HH = 25% HT or TH = 50% and TT = 25%. We treat the HT and TH as the same because for our purposes say we are looking for heads (aka blue gems) whether it comes on the first flip or the second it is still just 1 head (blue gem).

So when I say 0 out of 4 I mean that you have a 40.96% chance of getting no blue gems when prospecting four times. you must prospect four time to get this % of probability. Propecting once or twice or three time will all have different % probabilities for each potential outcome.

But let me make it SIMPLE.

All the proababilities above are based off of four propects, while fun to calculate for the layman IT DOES NOT MATTER! when wowhead says approx 22%, over the course of 100’s of prospects, YOU WILL PRODUCE A BLUE GEM 22% OF THE TIME.

The %’s or probabilities above are merely number expressing your odds when we go into multiple propects, similar to the coin toss. Over the course of dozens of stacks prospected, some producing 1, some 2, a couple stacks producing 3 blue gems and the rare stack producing 4 blue gems, when you take the number of gems add them up and divide by the number of propects it will equal 22%.

This whole conversation started with some people applying partial probabilites combination math and coming up with a number no one could understand. I had hoped to clear up the math and the odds on four prospects or a stack of ore, but i think i may have just confused some of you.

FOR THE PURPOSE OF DOING MATH TO FIGURE WHETHER A STACK OF ORE IS WORTH BUYING LOOK AT THE ABOVE COMMENT.

and yes Will, the math is the same as I use personally, which to be honest has nothing to do with probabilities math. Odds change the more times we flip a coin, however in the long run the averages will always be 50% and 50% for a single coin toss. The same applies for the a prospect, 22% each time.

In the post you linked, Maxxer writes:

“You have 22% to get a blue gem from a prospect of 5 adamantite ore. “A” blue gem is worth 30.9, and 30.9 times 0.22 equals 6.8. So prospecting 5 ore is worth 6.8 gold in our example. That makes our average return on a stack of adamantite ore (20 ore) 6.8 * 4 = 27.2 gold. I wouldn’t buy ore if I had less than a 10% margin on just the blue gems, so I’d buy stacks of 24g or less in this example. However, see the ‘Demand and Supply’ part before you buy out 70 stacks of adamantite ore. For me prospecting accounts for approximately 35% of my JC profit. ”

He is also multiplying his result by 4 (to get expected value of prospecting 20 adamantite ore), so essentially, his math is the same as mine.

“probability of 0 out of 4 = .4096 or 40.96%”
“probability of 4 out of 4 = .0016 or .16%”

You are telling us that if you don’t prospect any ore you have more chances to get a gem than prospecting 4 times in a row?

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2405312046&sid=1

oh also firgured out how to get a avatar! for anyone interested youll need to go to:

http://en.gravatar.com/

and register an account with your email, my understanding is that it goes acrooss all wordpress blogs.

probability of 0 out of 4 = .4096 or 40.96%
probability of 1 out of 4 = .4096 or 40.96%
probability of 2 out of 4 = .1536 or 15.36%
probability of 3 out of 4 = .0256 or 2.56%
probability of 4 out of 4 = .0016 or .16%

If you are interested in the probabilities math is based on college level quantative business analysis 260 or equivalent, or poker hand chance probabilities.

(1/5)^0 x (4/5)^4 x 1 = .4096
(1/5)^1 x (4/5)^3 x 4 = .4096
(1/5)^2 x (4/5)^2 x 6 = .1536
(1/5)^3 x (4/5)^1 x 4 = .0256
(1/5)^4 x (4/5)^0 x 1 = .0016

the 1,4,6,4,1 based off of pascal triangle for possible combinations.

I can’t easily give you a lesson in probability, but this magic 59.04% you guys are coming up with is irrelevant to our calculations. The last post was calculating the odds of getting (or not getting) ONE Badge of Justice in TEN Shattered Sun Supplies. We weren’t factoring the probability of getting two badges in ten supplies, or even three badges.