I don't think it's as small as the oxygen molecule example that I gave (though I've never tried to estimate it, so I suppose I could be mistaken about that), but it definitely is plenty small enough to also be considered "not possible" by any reasonable person.
The oxygen example is an extreme one.
Absolutely.
Even if everyone in the world did literally nothing but constantly generate new wallets for millions of years, we still wouldn't get a collision. It is safe to assume the chance of a random collision is zero, just as it is safe to assume the chance of randomly suffocating is zero.
Exactly. The whole point of the analogy is to demonstrate something that the average person IS willing to say is "impossible" while pointing out that the probability is NOT zero.
It's a real-life example that people can maybe sort of grasp. Once they're willing to accept that there are SOME "non-zero" probabilities that are realistically "impossible", it becomes a bit easier to accept that the chance of a bitcoin address collision might be one of those types of "impossible".
