Post An6IDExIli0coFfdhI by nlowell@zirk.us
(DIR) More posts by nlowell@zirk.us
(DIR) Post #An6BtPYX2yiiAaFKsK by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-17T13:37:11Z
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Discussion question for probability: Is there a person who has never flipped a coin and gotten heads in their life? (what about a person who has flipped a coin at least 15 times with this history?)
(DIR) Post #An6C8RsyfQqvjsyp8a by RogerBW@discordian.social
2024-10-17T13:39:52Z
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@futurebird Trivially, a small child who has never flipped a coin. But it's not exactly a common activity among the people I know; I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone who's had a 15-tail run, but it may have been spread over several years and they simply didn't notice it.
(DIR) Post #An6DAoHOTjAhj35f96 by FantasticalEconomics@geekdom.social
2024-10-17T13:51:30Z
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@futurebird I can safely say that 100% of people who have never flipped a coin have not gotten heads in their life (or tails for that matter). ;)For the second question, I am not sure how many people have flipped a coin only 15 times. I bet it's far fewer than 32768 (2^15) people, so it's unlikely anyone has never flipped heads in their fifteen flips. (I think there are many who never got a head in their first 15 flips).
(DIR) Post #An6DUDic7YkM7q4t5k by llewelly@sauropods.win
2024-10-17T13:55:02Z
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@futurebird for thousands of years, coins were rare enough that there were a lot of people who didn't encounter them often, and thus some people who only ever flipped a coin 15 times. Were there enough people only flipped a coin 15 times that one of them flipped all tails? Maybe. I confess I don't know enough to have any idea whether the given number of people would be in the thousands, tens of thousands, or more, so I don't know.
(DIR) Post #An6DWtOq7fYzya6RJg by gikkt@wandering.shop
2024-10-17T13:44:10Z
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@futurebird perhaps someone who lived a short life
(DIR) Post #An6F4SnVdQpPGsDIrg by dmself@mstdn.social
2024-10-17T14:12:47Z
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@futurebird Not a coin, but a roulette wheel.August 18, 1913 in Monte-Carlo, a roulette wheel landed on black 26 times in a row, leading to people losing vast sums of money betting on red because they believed it was "due".This incident led to the Gambler's Fallacy often being called the Monte-Carlo Fallacy.When I was an undergrad, we once calculated the probability of this event, given that the game was played daily for many years, and I don't remember the answer, but it was much > 0.
(DIR) Post #An6GJlJ5CTPGyTqBNI by Jackiemauro@fosstodon.org
2024-10-17T14:26:45Z
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@futurebird well for the first, without any additional conditions, the answer is a resounding yes. Neither my for year old nor my one year old has ever flipped a coin and gotten heads. But generally…I have no idea of the distribution of coin flips over a lifetime.
(DIR) Post #An6IDExIli0coFfdhI by nlowell@zirk.us
2024-10-17T14:47:59Z
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@futurebird I think there may be people who have never flipped an actual coin. Those that don't have a coin to flip, maybe? I don't think either of my kids have ever flipped a physical coin - although I know they've both rolled physical dice.One might hypothesize someone who flipped one coin once, got a tail, and never flipped another coin.15 times? it's still 50/50 for each toss but how depressing would that be?
(DIR) Post #An6QJJA0qXtDDp1K9w by kly@fosstodon.org
2024-10-17T16:18:42Z
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@futurebird Forgive the digression, but I'm reminded of math teacher I had that introduced us to the subject of probabilites by having the class divide in two. One half were to toss a coin 100 times and note the result, the other half made up the coin tosses. He were to tell who did what individually based only on the notes.He got all of them right, because we all underestimated the probability of four identical tosses in a row.Highly motivating teacher.
(DIR) Post #An6W1aiBS7RSAUwGQa by CoolerPseudonym@wandering.shop
2024-10-17T17:22:40Z
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@futurebird Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but maybe not many others