Are they? Where does this assumption come from?

What are the odds of throwing a tails with a coin twice in the row? — BlueBanana

Ofcourse I would say 50/50.

There is a very difficult slight in the underground legerdemain called "flippant technique"(not to be confused with the card slight or flourish). It takes anywhere from 5-15 years to master, and its purely a technique of control, so there is no way to classify it as cheating. I don't know if there even is an official world record, but I've seen a 72 year old male prestidigitator flip my silver morgan to tails 54 times in a row landing it on a card table(heads is slightly harder to flip to.), but I've seen that achived at 33 times in a row by the same man. It suspected there is only a few thousand people on earth who have masterd flippant technique, it was created in the 1970's soppousedly, making it the longest kept underground move I know of in the legerdemain.

How would you calculate the odds with this man involved? To me it would still be 50/50.

Well if the odds are not 50/50, then what are they? — XanderTheGrey

You've not defined the problem. The odds of having the best poker hand at a given time is 1/number-of-players, and that does not equate to the odds of winning the hand, but it helps.

What are the odds that the Cubs win the last world Series? Point of view matters a lot in answering a question like that, hence my asking for a problem definition, but I cannot think of a way to word it where the odds work out to 50/50.

You might say we would have to calculate the odds by examining all things that could effect the outcome of the situation; even things that manipulate time and space, and in this case the things that could effect the situation to go in any direction or arive at any outcome are infinite.

Odds calculations are usually an epistemological issue. In the case of a poker hand, the presumption is that the order of the cards in the deck is sufficiently unknown as to be considered functionally random.

Ofcourse I would say 50/50.

There is a very difficult slight in the underground legerdemain called "flippant technique"(not to be confused with the card slight or flourish). It takes anywhere from 5-15 years to master, and its purely a technique of control, so there is no way to classify it as cheating. I don't know if there even is an official world record, but I've seen a 72 year old male prestidigitator flip my silver morgan to tails 54 times in a row landing it on a card table(heads is slightly harder to flip to.), but I've seen that achived at 33 times in a row by the same man.

How would you calculate the odds with this man involved? To me it would still be 50/50. — XanderTheGrey

Is your argument that because the're are too many factors or the problem is too hard to calculate, we're to assume 50/50 odds?

Tell me this, what are the odds of the first coin being tails and the second coin being tails, then?

Both Even and Natural numbers are infinite. Are they equal?

If you try to shoot yourself, are your odds of surviving 50%? Are your odds of dying for no reason at that moment 50%? If both are yes, why not shoot yourself because there's no increased risk of dying?

Is your argument that because the're are too many factors or the problem is too hard to calculate, we're to assume 50/50 odds? — BlueBanana

Yes, or no. I'm saying the factors are infinite, and that should work out the odds to 50/50, right?

Let say the odds of getting a winning poker hand are 1/5 becuase there are 5 players. You are only calculating the odds based on limited factors. But in reality the factors are not limited, you could be a mark, and recive a baited hand. Or everything at the table could be fair, and there are duplicate or even triplicate cards in the deck from the factory(cards are made in sheets so likely it would have to be purposefully done by a worker just to cuase possible mayhem). Someone cloud suffer a brain aneurysm and die.

Likely you will calculate odds based on the number of players alone yes? You wouldnt factor in the odds of soneone at the table spontaniously dying from an aneurysm. And I might do the same with confidence, but that dosen't make 1/5 the true odds, the odds of you winning are still 50/50, "you will either win, or you won't".

Tell me this, what are the odds of the first coin being tails and the second coin being tails, then?
1m ReplyShareFlag — BlueBanana

Already said, considering this hypothesis; the odds are 50/50.

It's not possible for the first coin flip to have 50/50 chances, the second coin to have 50/50 chances and the odds of both having the desired result being 50/50. How familiar are you with probabilistic mathematics?

You wouldnt factor in the odds of soneone at the table spontaniously dying from an aneurysm. — XanderTheGrey

I would, but all the players have an equal chance of dying.

the odds of you winning are still 50/50 — XanderTheGrey

If everyone has 50/50 chance of winning, on average there are 2,5 winners each game.

Also, address my example of your suicide.

If you try to shoot yourself, are your odds of surviving 50%? Are your odds of dying for no reason at that moment 50%? If both are yes, why not shoot yourself because there's no increased risk of dying? — BlueBanana

The same reason anyone gambles. If you must play a game of roulette, and you have a choice between red and black on the roulette table, and your chances of hitting black are equal to your chances of hitting red, why choose one over the other?

It's a matter of preference perhaps..... lets say I simply "prefer" red over black becuase it give me a better feeling when I think of it.

There are two handguns here, a .380, and a 9x19mm, if the chances of me dying instantly are the same with either, why would I choose the more powerful 9x19mm? Maybe because it feels more comfortable in my hand, or maybe I'm under the impression that it is more likely to kill me. Would that make it more likely to kill me?

If everyone has 50/50 chance of winning, on average there are 2,5 winners each game. — BlueBanana

You've studied more about probability than me, but from a personal prespective your chances of wining any given hand or game are still 50/50 are they not? You will either win or you won't.

It's not possible for the first coin flip to have 50/50 chances, the second coin to have 50/50 chances and the odds of both having the desired result being 50/50. How familiar are you with probabilistic mathematics? — BlueBanana

I have not studied probabilistic mathematics at all, it always excited me to learn however. I've worked with odds calculations in underground poker, and some basic card counting, thats it.

It's a matter of preference perhaps..... lets say I simply "prefer" red over black becuase it give me a better feeling when I think of it. — XanderTheGrey

Or maybe you know very well that you're very likely to die if you shoot yourself.

You've studied more about probability than me, but from a personal prespective your chances of wining any given hand or game are still 50/50 are they not? — XanderTheGrey

If the chances of getting a tails is 50/50 and you throw 10000 coins, there'll probably be ~5000 tails. If there's 50/50 chance of getting 10000 tails in the row, there's 0,5 chances that you're getting 10000 tails instead. Now repeat this test enough times, let's say 10000. You now have 100 000 000 coins, 50 000 000 of which are tails from the tests where you got 10000 tails in the row. You see how the math isn't just adding up?

Or maybe you know very well that you're very likely to die if you shoot yourself. — BlueBanana

I might belive or fear that, but I don't "know". The entire human race could be in a streak of chance in which probabilistic mathematics happens to work, is that fair to say?

Regardless of what I believe, I have always been tempted to play with probabilistic mathematics.

Regardless of what I believe, I have always been tempted to play with probabilistic mathematics. — XanderTheGrey

You are gonna have to drop that thoughtless 50/50 notion.

Also, I entirety encourage everyone to learn more math.

So there's a 50/50 chance you'll roll any particular number on a 6 sided die? My guess is you scored less than 50% on your statistic tests 100% of the time.

50/50...

50/50=1?

But yes in the end everything becomes equally probable. — IP060903

Perhaps someone would offer a proof. :chin:

6 year old thread, how come you opened it? Are you a bot?

Edit, oh comment was removed. Feel free to remove this comment too.

Or necrophiliac, he just got banned so maybe the moderators caught him in the act.

IP060903? or jgill?

IP060903 is the one I referred to.

I remember having a hard time getting over this fact when I learnt about probability: The larger the pool of random choices, the more uniform the results will become.

It seemed to utterly contradict what I defined as randomness. Add chaos to chaos and it starts getting more and more ordered? It felt like randomness was this feral beast that could suddenly be tamed by statistics. A paradigm shift.

I still do not know if uniform distrubutions are real randomness or if real randomness (as I thought of it) even exist.

Perhaps there was similar thinking behind the 50/50 guy, 6 years too late to ask though.

What are the odds of me getting hit by a lightning strike twice in the same day?

50%, it either happens or it doesn't.

The larger the pool of random choices, the more uniform the results will become. — mentos987

You mean a normal distribution aka bell curve?

A bell curve is one type of uniform distribution, yes.

The interesting thing is that the distribution gets more uniform the more random events you add to it. Randomness is going towards order. This seemed very unintuitive to me when I was in school.

The interesting thing is that the distribution gets more uniform the more random events you add to it. — mentos987

Example?

A coin flip is random, yet its uniform distribution is 50% heads and 50% tails.

If you flip it once the results will be extreme, it will be either 100% tails or 100% heads.

If you flip it ten times the results will move towards 50/50 but it is unlikely to reach that, a 60/40 distribution is about as likely.

If you flip them 10000 times you will find that you are almost always within 1% of 50/50.

The more coin tosses you perform the closer you will get to the uniform distribution.

Randomness itself seems to vanish the more of it you have. A disappearing act of statistics.

I see what you mean now. Yes, that is true. I am sure there is an intuitive explanation for how that arrives (without defaulting to statistics); I got no brain cells left for today or tomorrow, so let me know if you find one.

Maybe you can shed some light as to why massed randomness seems so ordered.

Edit: I flagged your comment above, I don't know what that does or how to undo it. Sorry

↪jgill

Maybe you can shed some light as to why massed randomness seems so ordered. — mentos987

The Central Limit Theorem may be what you are talking about, although this ancient thread goes all over the place.The CLT concerns arithmetic averages of n observations as the value of n goes to infinity.

This thread might also involve the notion that in an infinite period of time all things that are possible will occur. That's pretty vague.

I haven't used probability theory in over thirty years. @fdrake is more knowledgeable.

Seems it is called Law of large numbers

"the average of the results obtained from a large number of independent and identical random samples converges to the true value, if it exists."

Thank you jgill

"Things either happen or they don't," seems to miss how some things are contingent on others. For example, flipping a fair coin and having it come up heads 100 times in a row is something that either happens, or it does not, but its happening at the 100th coin flip is contingent on the prior 99 flips having come up heads.

I like the idea though. Sounds like the sort of thing you'd hear in pre-Socratic philosophy; those Greeks loved their "simple but counterintuitive," lines. Of course, you'd have to frame it in good verse for it to carry much weight with them.