145

"Fair" coin flips appear to not be all that fair (arxiv.org)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The paper shows some significant evidence that human coin flips are not as fair as I would have expected (plus probably a bunch of people would agree with me). There's always some probability that this happened by chance, but this is pretty low.

Of course, we should be able to build a really accurate coin flipping machine, but I never would have expected such a bias for human flippers.

This is why science is awesome and challenging your ideas is important.

Edit: hopefully this is not too wrong a place, but Lemmy is small, and I didn't know where else I could share such an exciting finding.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] ericbomb@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Now I wanna know if I can get better at landing on the same side on purpose...

[-] PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah... I had that thought for a second. Then I geeked out on the math and came to the same conclusion I had before.

Just as I won't learn to play poker or count cards, I'm not learning and practicing this.

I've got other things to do with my limited life.

[-] nous@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago

I suspect you can, if there is a bias when no effort is applied I suspect you can train to increase it. I can think of two main factors at play - how fast the coin is rotating and how long it remains in the air. Both of which are under your control and I suspect you can train to become more reliable for though it might take a lot of effort. Or you can just learn to do this in 10 mins. Who is going to know the difference? It is cheating either way.

[-] SayJess@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 11 months ago

Great minds think alike! I just referenced this video in another thread on this post, without having read your comment first!

[-] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 11 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Or you can just learn to do this in 10 mins

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023

145 points (95.0% liked)

Technology

58143 readers

4285 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS