4 ms·
Speaking from complete ignorance, with apologies to those who that will annoy: I'm sure it's possible to make a coin with what one might term "complex bias" wh
by pbhjpbhj 1y ago
Speaking from complete ignorance, with apologies to those who that will annoy:
I'm sure it's possible to make a coin with what one might term "complex bias" where the bias extends over two events (thick gloop inside the coin, possibly heat activated or non-Newtonian).
This method sounds like the bias needs to be fixed ("simple bias" if you like)?
I guess that's just out of scope here.
Aside: There's a strong 'vibe' that HHHH HHHH with a single coin is somehow less random than HTHTHTHT HTHTHTHT with two coins when discarding HH and TT. I wonder what the origin of that feeling is - maybe just HT doesn't seem like it's a constant result simply due to nomenclature? If we call HT "type-A", then we just have HHHH HHHH vs. AAAA AAAA; and I _feel_ happier about the result!
- Terr_ 1y agoI suspect this depends on where you drawn the upper bound, since a really really complex biased coin is one that spies on your thesis and data and is committed to making you suffer. Descartes' evil demon, in numismatic form.
- lovecg 1y agoCould the vibe be due to the fact that HHHH… seems like the coin could not just be biased - it could be completely broken and come up heads every time. There are two distinct possibilities here: 1) the coin is broken and is always H 2) the coin is random or possibly biased, and you got a string of H by chance And observing the string of H… increases the probability of 1) in the Bayesian sense. With the two coins you eliminate this possibility altogether - a broken coin can never produce HT or TH.