xorbie

You know what complicates things? If we are talking about flipping the coin that many friggin times, there is no way you could flip the coin, say 999 trillion times. Whatever the number is, eventually you just can't flip that many. I mean techinically, you can't flip infinite coins.

You can figure out how long it takes to flip a coin, figure out how many of those fit in before the coin disintegrates, and have fun.

Apocolips

Hola!

Chance of flipping:

One head is 50%
Two heads is 25%
Three heads is 12.5%
Four heads is 6.25%
Five heads is 3.125%
Six heads is 1.5625%
Seven heads is 0.78125% or 128 to one

So the chances of hitting seven heads in a row is less than 1 percent. Is this impossible? No. People have hit the lottery with worse odds.

Tell someone that for a dollar that if they can flip seven heads or tails, you will give them 100 dollars. If the rube gives you another dollar after failing the first time, then again and again, in theory you will have $128 dollars over a million flips.

We used to flip quarters in high school. One player drops a quarter on the floor, and the second player drops his coin, and tries to match his opponents quarter. A 50/50 prop bet. One day, I simply brought two rolls of quarters and cleaned a dude out. But, alas, this was the Bible belt, and quarter betting was outlawed.

I worked in a casino. The casino has rigged the odds against the player. A bet on a single number pays 35-1, but there are 38 numbers on the board (on a double zero wheel). If one plays a a 1 for 1 bet like red, black, even or odd, there are 18 numbers to your favor and 20 against. So as long as the roulette table is working, the house will always make its money.

I love the fiddle dude
:boohoo: :boohoo: :boohoo:

SENOR

Mageth

Quote leyline: it may depend upon how fast you can flip the coin. I mean i agree with what you guys say, but how does 6.2x10^-61 compare to the probability say of life developing on a planet?

Actually, the "probability of life developing on a planet" (in the universe) is 1.0.

leyline

mageth

lol yes. Or zero for a particular planet.

that is why i put forward the rewording of the original question to ...

what is the smallest amount of knowledge a human being can percieve?

it has to be greater than zero but less than 1 in terms of probabilty. Once we are not sure of something then we have to rely on geussing. In terms of the coin we say 0.5 because we have apparently no knowledge of prediction. But on the other hand assigning a value of 0.5 for a flip is a kind of knowledge! So if the scale for knowledge goes from zero to 1 like probabilty, then knowing it is fifty fifty is some knowledge.

With micro data we would assign a value of 1 or zero for the say 200 heads in a row because we have all the knowledge necessary to predict. ie we have a knowledge of 1 relative to the coin flipping.

A knowledge of zero with respect to the coin?............ duh.

John Page

How about a coin flipping machine that flips with exactly the same strength into air of the same resistance and the coin, which is always the same always lands on the same surface under the same conditions of gravity. Seems to me the coin, like a rigged die, will always land the same side up.

It seems to me that only small variations in the above constants would provide a change in the heads/tails result. So long as we are not in control of the variables to the degree of accuracy required to control the result, we will get seemingly random results. If we do measure all the variables precisely we will know why, on each coin toss, what the result will be and the randomness will disappear.

In short, we can to an extent control probabilities and the concept of infinity is not needed. Unless, of course, one invokes sub-quantum mechanics.

Cheers, John

CavemanUg

there is 100% probability of getting heads if you have a double sided coin where both sides are heads...

Magicians toys are fun