How random is a coin toss? - Numberphile
Randomness, coins and dental floss! Featuring Professor Persi Diaconis from Stanford University. More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓ To catch or ...
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There it is, that's hard to get. I don't know if your camera is fast enough to catch that. I'll do it until you cry "Uncle". There you go. So for many people -- me in particular, viscerally -- this is as close to a random phenomena as I know. And yet you can think about it, if you knew when the coin leaves your thumb ( faint ringing sound ) if you knew how fast it was traveling, and if you knew how many times a second it was turning over Newton tells you, if you know the speed, how long it takes you to come down and that if you know how fast it's turning, you know whether it will come up heads or tails. Coin tossing is a deterministic process. So what's random about it? But first of all, let's try doing a little of the math of tossing a coin. I...
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There it is, that's hard to get. I don't know if your camera is fast enough to catch that. I'll do it until you cry "Uncle". There you go. So for many people -- me in particular, viscerally -- this is as close to a random phenomena as I know. And yet you can think about it, if you knew when the coin leaves your thumb ( faint ringing sound ) if you knew how fast it was traveling, and if you knew how many times a second it was turning over Newton tells you, if you know the speed, how long it takes you to come down and that if you know how fast it's turning, you know whether it will come up heads or tails. Coin tossing is a deterministic process. So what's random about it? But first of all, let's try doing a little of the math of tossing a coin. I...
