OT: Home Sick for the Holidays, or Probability and Yahtzee

[David E. Gervais]

geo, as I said, we rolled 5 dice 20 times (100 die rolls) and did this test 10 times. (10x100 = 1000 die rolls)

It took us about a half hour to make all the rolls. If you mean that we should have rolled this full test 10 more times to get 10,000 die rolls, that is a bit much. It wasn't my aim to prove the law of averages, but to see how in one quick session Claude always seems to out-six me.

Besides rolling 10,000 or 100,000 dice is unrealistic and does not reflect real life applications. Life does not work like that. Averages and probabilities are at best a global "best guess" and no matter what the 'odds' are or how many million tests are used to achieve those 'averages' it does not guarantee your imediate results.

Think of it this way, according to 'averages' if you roll a dice you have a 1/6 chance to hit a 6, but if you miss, your odds on the second throw don't improve, they stay exactly the same.

Cheers!

P.S...
so, anyone want to try my test and share the results?