Equation 30 · Part 2 · The Network Is the Computer Again
Symbol q
What this part means
the probability.
Its job in the formula
q is one of the signed contributions combined to compute the quantity on the left.
Full expression→Symbol q→Article meaning
Where the article explains it
If each participant independently exceeds its budget with probability q , the probability that at least one of p participants does so is .
The passage around this formula
…occasional slow responses, and a request that must wait on many servers is very likely to encounter one [ 18 ] . The arithmetic is unforgiving. If each participant independently exceeds its budget with probability q , the probability that at least one of p participants does so is . so at a one-percent per-participant rate and 100 participants, roughly 63 percent of collectives are affected — and at 1,000 participants, essentially all of them. That is my own arithmetic on an independence…
Learn the underlying idea
A variable is a named place for a value. Its letter is a local label: x can mean position in one formula and a data point in another.
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Sources cited in the surrounding passage
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