3 ms·
I disagree. "Any point in time is more likely to have the initial side up" if you count the initial state, which for the purpose of a coin toss you wouldn't. Af
by 0xa08f60 9y ago
I disagree. "Any point in time is more likely to have the initial side up" if you count the initial state, which for the purpose of a coin toss you wouldn't. After a coin is flipped it's going to spend 50% of its time heads up and 50% of its time tails up.
I'm pretty sure the article is wrong. Hold on while I write a little script to test this out.
Edit: Script below; feel free to critique or make modifications where you think they are more realistic.
// Let 1 represent heads and 0 represent tails.
coin_state = 1;
number_of_heads = 0;
number_of_tails = 0;
for (i = 0; i < 1000000; i++)
{
// How fast the coin flips (flips per second)
flip_speed = (Math.random() * 10) + 20;
// How long the coin is in the air (seconds)
catch_time = Math.random() + 2.5;
number_of_flips = Math.floor(flip_speed * catch_time);
/*
Odd number of flips means coin ends up in opposite state from start (tails
in this case). Even number of flips means coin ends up in same state as start
(heads in this case)
*/
if (number_of_flips % 2) { coin_state = 0; }
if (number_of_flips % 2 == 0) { number_of_heads++; }
else { number_of_tails++; }
}
console.log("Heads:", number_of_heads);
console.log("Tails:", number_of_tails);
- vorathing 9y agoThe article is wrong in that it assumes the initial state of the coin has as much duration as the subsequent states. If that was the case, the difference in duration would be the same as in the odd-even sequence : number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 odd 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 even 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 difference 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 However, what happens here is different - you start at "half a state", meaning that the graph is a see-saw, as such: rotations 0.0 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 head 0.0 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.5 0.75 0.75 tail 0.0 0.0 0.25 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.75 difference 0 .25 0 -.25 0 .25 0
- wakamoleguy 9y agoYou're right based on the article. It turns out the paper takes precession into account, which, depending on the angle you flip it at, significantly changes the time that the initial face is up.