With all this talk about the coin flip, I searched a little to see if the odds really are 50/50.
From the lonked article, mathematician Persi Diaconis, who has studied coin flips says:
"The coin toss is not about probability at all. It is about physics, the coin, and how the “tosser” is actually throwing it. The majority of times, if a coin is heads-up when it is flipped, it will remain heads-up when it lands. Diaconis has even trained himself to flip a coin and make it come up heads 10 out of 10 times.
He said "Super Bowl coins are much larger (than normal coins, I don't know about playoff coins). And the effect is probably much bigger,” Diaconis said.
His advice? “Try to catch a glimpse of how it starts out. Is it heads-up when it’s flipped? Then bet on it coming up on that same side."
Tails does fail.
not 50/50 - (
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I wonder if the players see the way the coin is lying on the refs hand beige they can. If this information is available then they should make an effort to conceal the call until the call has been made.
At the very least, it seems that the coin should be hidden from whoever going to call it.
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship
Elected member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Mathematical Society
Elected member, National Academy of Sciences
BBI: Idiot!
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship
Elected member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Mathematical Society
Elected member, National Academy of Sciences
BBI: Idiot!
LOL
It's a 50/50 chance.
It's a 50/50 chance.
They used to catch it, before that infamous botched coin toss call with (IIRC?) PITT, but yeah, that's a pretty big miss for Dr Big Brain.
"this idiot" has a PhD in statistics from Harvard and is a professor at Stanford.
And do it in front of 60,000 screaming fans in the cold and wind and possibly rain or snow.
Not to mention the ref's physical situation can be affected by the weather. Each coin might have different characteristics. Also, the coin goes to the ground, so there are factors of physics that will affect whether there is a bounce, and the dynamics of the bounce. The height of the tosser's hand will have an impact, along with the force used to toss it. The coin would also need to have the same exact placement and balance on the thumb for each toss. Guy is looking for his 15 minutes of fame.
I have no doubt you could program a robot to do that in pristine conditions, but not a random person, especially one who isn't trying to make that happen.
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship
Elected member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Mathematical Society
Elected member, National Academy of Sciences
BBI: Idiot!
He never won the Fields medal. Who's the idiot now?
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flip a coin and have it come up heads ten times out of ten on purpose.
"this idiot" has a PhD in statistics from Harvard and is a professor at Stanford.
I already knew he was an idiot. No need to reconfirm it for me.
But seriously, tell Professor Pocket Protector to flip a coin ten times and have it come up heads.
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In comment 15574351 BlackLight said:
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flip a coin and have it come up heads ten times out of ten on purpose.
"this idiot" has a PhD in statistics from Harvard and is a professor at Stanford.
I already knew he was an idiot. No need to reconfirm it for me.
But seriously, tell Professor Pocket Protector to flip a coin ten times and have it come up heads.
Dr. Nerd says the earth is round? What is he Copernicus or something? What an idiot!
What may be an interesting scenario then is to watch and track the referees to see when each guy flips the coin, does it end up heads or tails. They would likely flip it the same way each time.
+1.
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship
Elected member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Mathematical Society
Elected member, National Academy of Sciences
BBI: Idiot!
haha, well done. At least posting with better humor these days...
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship
Elected member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Mathematical Society
Elected member, National Academy of Sciences
BBI: Idiot!
That’s all great, but what did he score on an internet IQ test?
55 Super Bowls
Tails = 29 times
Heads = 25 times
Pretty close.
I wonder if you can practice this enough to get the same outcome pretty regularly.
Did the coin hit the turf though? Any breeze? Does it flip higher indoors vs outdoors? Was it a full moon?
Other way around. More males born at 105 to 100 rate.
By age 21, the numbers are the opposite, iirc.
There's a physical object, the coin, that may or may not tend to land more often on one side. That coin then interacts with the environment: wind, the hand of the coin-flipper, etc. The flip isn't necessarily perfect, either; the side that is up when it's tossed tends to be the side that comes up when the coin lands. In basketball, they have cut back on the number of jump balls precisely because it's very hard to do a perfectly fair toss. Same is true for a coin.
If a solution is needed, it may just be not to let the person who calls the flip know whether the coin is starting with heads up or tails up. Or maybe no solution is needed at all. But it doesn't seem that hard to me to grasp that the theoretical coin flip isn't the same as a real coin flip, even if the difference is small.
There's a physical object, the coin, that may or may not tend to land more often on one side. That coin then interacts with the environment: wind, the hand of the coin-flipper, etc. The flip isn't necessarily perfect, either; the side that is up when it's tossed tends to be the side that comes up when the coin lands. In basketball, they have cut back on the number of jump balls precisely because it's very hard to do a perfectly fair toss. Same is true for a coin.
If a solution is needed, it may just be not to let the person who calls the flip know whether the coin is starting with heads up or tails up. Or maybe no solution is needed at all. But it doesn't seem that hard to me to grasp that the theoretical coin flip isn't the same as a real coin flip, even if the difference is small.
No offense but "whatever"
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship
Elected member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Mathematical Society
Elected member, National Academy of Sciences
BBI: Idiot!
+1. LOL. Great post!
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship
Elected member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Mathematical Society
Elected member, National Academy of Sciences
BBI: Idiot!
Just LOL’ed so loud.
There's a physical object, the coin, that may or may not tend to land more often on one side. That coin then interacts with the environment: wind, the hand of the coin-flipper, etc. The flip isn't necessarily perfect, either; the side that is up when it's tossed tends to be the side that comes up when the coin lands. In basketball, they have cut back on the number of jump balls precisely because it's very hard to do a perfectly fair toss. Same is true for a coin.
If a solution is needed, it may just be not to let the person who calls the flip know whether the coin is starting with heads up or tails up. Or maybe no solution is needed at all. But it doesn't seem that hard to me to grasp that the theoretical coin flip isn't the same as a real coin flip, even if the difference is small.
Shhhh... You're being too reasonable!
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Occurrence that turns out to not be is the sex of a baby. Apparently, there is a slightly higher chance that the embryo will remain female than become male although im not sure of the actual statistic. I can guess the reason but i have never confirmed it.
Other way around. More males born at 105 to 100 rate.
By age 21, the numbers are the opposite, iirc.
Thanks, i had it backwards. That seems interesting to me. I looked it up and they believe that female babies have a slightly higher natural infant morality rate.
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The point is that the coin flip isn't governed strictly by probability. This is physics, not math. The coin flip is not strictly random because there are other factors involved that skew it from perfect randomness.
There's a physical object, the coin, that may or may not tend to land more often on one side. That coin then interacts with the environment: wind, the hand of the coin-flipper, etc. The flip isn't necessarily perfect, either; the side that is up when it's tossed tends to be the side that comes up when the coin lands. In basketball, they have cut back on the number of jump balls precisely because it's very hard to do a perfectly fair toss. Same is true for a coin.
If a solution is needed, it may just be not to let the person who calls the flip know whether the coin is starting with heads up or tails up. Or maybe no solution is needed at all. But it doesn't seem that hard to me to grasp that the theoretical coin flip isn't the same as a real coin flip, even if the difference is small.
No offense but "whatever"
Education and comedy in two. Well done gents.
The ref generally doesn't check what side he is flipping the coin from, he appears not to flip it in any particular manner, and he lets it drop to the ground.
The ref generally doesn't check what side he is flipping the coin from, he appears not to flip it in any particular manner, and he lets it drop to the ground.
* might not