Re: Dice
Re: Dice
- Subject: Re: Dice
- From: Bill Briggs <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:19:40 -0300
At 11:31 PM -0400 10/26/04, Graff wrote:
On Oct 26, 2004, at 10:23 PM, Bill Briggs wrote:
At 9:56 PM -0400 10/26/04, Graff wrote:
On Oct 26, 2004, at 3:39 PM, John C. Welch wrote:
On 10/26/2004 13:28, "Graff" <email@hidden> wrote:
So no, it doesn't seem to be perfect but it's probably good enough
for most applications.
Out of curiosity, what would the std deviation be if the random was
perfect?
A perfectly even distribution would be for every value to show up the
same number of times. In that case the std deviation would be 0.
However, a perfectly even distribution is not, by definition, perfectly
random, or even close.
Well a fairly even distribution over the long
term is a semi-decent indicator of randomness.
Of course it doesn't necessarily mean that the
sample is random as you can have even
distributions that are not random.
Check this out. It's a lottery called 6/49.
The numbers come out of one of those bingo cage
things full of little balls. No digital
technology involved. Note the unevenness of the
histogram, even considering that there are a
few hundred draws in the data. It should be a
good random process, btu the histogram is not
"evenly distributed".
http://lottery.sympatico.msn.ca/cgi-bin/english?job=frequency_chart&lottery_name=na_lotto_649&order=0&years=0
Let's see, from that data I get a standard
deviation of approximately 19. So 68% of the
data is within 309 ± 19, or 290 - 329.
Yep, sounds fairly even to me.
No more so than the data that was under discussion.
Besides, who says that a "bingo cage things full
of little balls" is a good random number
generator. For all we know some balls weigh a
bit more, are slightly larger, or are out of
round.
I expect that it produces results that are more
random than random numbers generated by a
discrete state machine (computer) that has to be
seeded and applies an algorithm. Given the
intractability of predicting future states in the
mechanical problem with 49 balls in a spinning
cage, I'll put my money on that process being
more random, even with manufacturing tolerances
on the balls allowing some small variation.
Hell, maybe even the contest is fixed in some
way. I've always suspected that of the
lottery...
You're welcome to believe that, but I don't for
an instance believe it's fixed. In the first
place, it's not run by the GOP, and in the
second, tickets are not associated with
purchasers, so just how it would be fixed is hard
to imagine (and the winners aren't exactly the
connected and influential folks in the country).
- web
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| References: | |
| | >Re: Dice (From: "John C. Welch" <email@hidden>) |
| | >Re: Dice (From: Graff <email@hidden>) |
| | >Re: Dice (From: Bill Briggs <email@hidden>) |
| | >Re: Dice (From: Graff <email@hidden>) |