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Re:Heuristics that almost always work by mort96 on Tuesday February 08, 2022 @06:21PM (#30266299)
Remember that the relevant set isn't the set of all trees, but the set of trees old enough to be large enough to sleep under. That means the average lifetime would be: (number of years it takes for a tree to become big enough to sleep under) + 13.7.

I would still guess that the number is wrong, I suspect that trees have a longer life on average from becoming what we would consider "big" until they fall over. But it's still an important detail.

Re:Heuristics that almost always work by withinboredom on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @04:18AM (#30270660)
I mean “big enough to sleep under” is around 50+ years for most hardwoods IIRC. Also, you have to consider groups of trees that can fall on you in the surrounding area. So it’s really the probability that a tree falls within any given 50m radius, towards the center. I think the stated probability is pretty accurate. Also as humans, we tend to pick trees that provide the best shelter, thus older. From experience, if one of those big older branches decide to fall, you don’t want to be underneath. As a kid, a huge oak tree lost a huge branch right in front of me. It scared the crap out of my 8yr old self, so much that I still remember it quite vividly, it would have killed my brother and I if we hadn’t just moved out of the area. The limb looked perfectly healthy btw, green and all. There was no indicating factors, according to the adults at the time.