![]() ![]() The data to be simulated is the process of flipping five coins and counting the number of heads. This blog explores an alternative approach to producing simulated data in Excel and then using R to analyse it. While the basic macro coding skills covered in those blogs are useful for producing slick, pre-created examples, they do require a significant investment of time and effort to produce. “Probability is a fact about an observer’s knowledge.In previous blogs I discussed how macros in Excel can be used to create simulations for repeated dice rolls. “That kind of thought has led a group of us to say that probability isn’t a fact about the world,” Diaconis said in the Against All Odds interview. His advice? “Try to catch a glimpse of how it starts out.” Is it heads-up when it’s flipped? Then bet on it coming up on that same side. “And the effect is probably much bigger,” Diaconis said. Are they fair? Firstly, Super Bowl coins are much larger. ![]() ![]() This brings us to the discussion of sports, and those that involve coin tosses to decide a team’s possession. “Coin tossing is pretty close to fair,” he said. “But if pressed, people, when pushed, seem to think that a coin dropping on the floor is fairer… when a coin hits the ground, before it dies, often it spins around on its edge. “Most people think, ‘This guy’s nuts,’” Diaconis said in an interview with the Numberphile website. Further, some magicians will have coins that are shaved, giving more weight to one side. Because of the way most coins are made, the “heads” side can weigh more, which means it will fall on that side, leaving the other side up more often. Diaconis has even trained himself to flip a coin and make it come up heads 10 out of 10 times.Ī similar effect is seen if the coin is spun. The majority of times, if a coin is heads-up when it is flipped, it will remain heads-up when it lands. It is about physics, the coin, and how the “tosser” is actually throwing it. The coin toss is not about probability at all, he says. In fact, there are people around carnivals, and I, on occasion, have been able to flip a coin and keep control over it.” Probability Versus Physics If you flip a coin quite vigorously, it’s as close to being a fair event-50/50-as I know, if you flip it and catch it on your hand… However, we usually don’t do them vigorously… If you think about it the least little bit, you’ll realize it’s not random at all. “First of all, it’s possible to make things random. “I have spent years analyzing the basic images of randomness,” he said in an episode of the Annenberg Learner Against All Odds series. And, like a good mathematician, he’s proven it. Most people assume the toss of a coin is always a 50/50 probability, with a 50 percent chance it lands on heads, and a 50 percent chance it lands on tails. Three years later, he’d earned his doctorate and joined the Stanford faculty.ĭiaconis then began to study other instances of change, questioning whether the things we think we know are, in fact, true. After getting two of his mathematical card tricks published in Scientific American, he used his editor’s recommendation to get him into Harvard as a statistics student. He did that for 10 years, and by age 24, he was taking classes at City College of New York, paying his way by doing magic tricks during the day. He would go on to tackle other numbers games, like how shuffling decks of cards didn’t really mix up the deck.īy that time he’d dropped out of high school and was traveling the country with a magician, perfecting his sleight of hand. In fact, as a teenager, he was doing his best to expose scammers at a Caribbean casino who were using shaved dice to better their chances against their customers. Persi Diaconis did not begin his life as a mathematician. Sorry to burst your bubble, but in this weekly column, Ripley’s puts those delusions to the test, turning your world upside down, because you can’t always…Believe It! In today’s world many misconceptions have been perpetuated-becoming modern day “facts”-when, in reality, myths and hearsay have taken over. ![]()
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