What else did your teachers tell you. 4

[JCreamerII]

Taking a thought from the a post I just read, what did a teacher tell you as fact, that was wrong?

I had a Biology teacher tell my class that lobsters were red. We started a new club, LAG "Lobsters are Green". He obviously never saw one in a tank. Again this goes back over 40 years. But he was totally convinced that they were red.

Jim C.

 

[IPGuru]

1st I do not dispute the mathematics so the program was written as a crude mean of demonstrating it.

IO can think of a number of factors that could skew the results from the real world

1) no random number generator is truly random
2) Dice are not perfectly balanced so would tend to favour a particular number.

I think the errors produced by either of these factors to be small enough to be considered insignificant

I chose 360000 as a sample size because it was a nice multiple of the expected result
re running with a sample size of 1,000,000 or even 2160000 makes no significant difference to my results.

I have repeated the experiment with 32 samples & unsurprisingly results have varied considerably from 1 in 9 (4 matches) to infinity(0) matches. this is not surprising as any practical modleing of statistical events requires a large sample size.


I do not Have A.D.D. im just easily, Hey look a Squirrel!

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> But Photos of what? LOL

Photos of photons taken through an electron microscope.

==> Is a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light?
Let me ask this. What are the fundamental qunata of light?
If photon or photons is the only item in your list, then there is only one item in your list; therefore, it's a fundamental quantum.



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[CajunCenturion]

Didn't mean to hit submit

If you have more than one item in your list, then the items collectively in your list are the fundamental quanta, but any individual item is a fundamental quantum.


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[1DMF]

>How many times does it hapen if you just do 36? What do you think?

I think it could happen anywhere between zero times and 36 , you?

I chose 360000 as a sample size because it was a nice multiple of the expected resultre running with a sample size of 1,000,000 or even 2160000 makes no significant difference to my results.

Wow, how long did that take?

But it does show that the probability only ever seems to produce the average if a large enough sample size is used.

So how long would I have to sit at the roulette wheel in Las Vegas before I either won or at least broke even?

I think if you start winning they throw you out anyway don't they -



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!"

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[djj55]

In school (I believe college) they talked about the probability of a coin toss heads or tails. You should have a 50/50 chance. If you flip a coin 999 time and it comes up heads what is the change of the 1000 time being tails? 50/50.

Thus for the roulette wheel, the way to be a winner is be the house.

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[BJCooperIT]

My chemistry teacher insisted that if you placed two pots, one filled with cold water and the other filled with room-temperature water, on stover burners set on high, the pot with cold water would come to a boil first!

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~ George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant Developer/Analyst Oracle, Forms, Reports & PL/SQL (Windows)

 

[strongm]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-it-true-that-hot-water

 

[SantaMufasa]

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.

Some "crap" that I learned in high school includes:[ul][li]Cracking knuckles causes arthritis.[/li][li]We only use 10% of our brains.[/li][li]We must do our homework in a well-lighted place, otherwise it will damage our eyes.[/li][li]We must not swim for an hour after eating.[/li][li]If we swallow our gum, it will congeal into an undigestible ball in our stomachs.[/li][/ul]

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[1DMF]

•Cracking knuckles causes arthritis.

I gues having them fractured hurts just as much though!

Unless they thought having good looking hands can cause a disability?

•We only use 10% of our brains.

I do , but only on a good day ;-)

•If we swallow our gum, it will congeal into an undigestible ball in our stomachs.

Wow is that even possible, I've heard of swollowing your tongue, but that sounds improbable!



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!"

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[sleipnir214]

I always figured the "10% of your brains" thing was true. The other 90% would be taken up by the operating system.


Want to ask the best questions? Read Eric S. Raymond's essay "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way". TANSTAAFL!

 

[IPGuru]

Wow, how long did that take?

as it happens not log at all
1,000,000 samples took less than 10 seconds (probably less than 5but I wasnt actualy timing it), it was a quiet day at w**k ;-)

So how long would I have to sit at the roulette wheel in Las Vegas before I either won or at least broke even?

As my partner is a croupier I feel (almost) qualified to answer this one

the longer you spend at the roulette wheel the smaller your chances of breaking even
Roulette pays at best 35 to 1 (the evens bets are actualy the WORST thing you can do)

A European wheel has numbers 0 to 36 so the odds of winning are actually 37 to 1, in Vegas it is even worse ass they have an additional 00 reducing the odds to 38 to 1.

Their is only one way to will at roulette long term - own the table.
there is an old roulette formula that says double your bet each time you loose but in practice this soon exceeds the table maximum (& your bank roll)

The only casino game that can be beaten is Black Jack because the probability of any hand is affected by the previous hands.
if played properly the house as an edge of about 1.5%, a card counter will vary his bet based on how may high cards have been dealt (a deck full of high cards increases the chances of the dealer busting). this takes a good deal of skill & though not illegal if the casino think you are doing it they will ask you to leave (a Casino just like a shop or a pub does have the right to refuse admission)


I do not Have A.D.D. im just easily, Hey look a Squirrel!

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

my Biology teacher was a staunch catholic. must have been a tough pill to swallow teaching us about evolution....

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[djj55]

hairlesssupportmonkey, at one time the Catholic church outlawed a vacuum.

Your post reminded me of my high school chemistry teacher, he would read from the bible first thing. No preaching just read. If we did not want to do chemistry that day we would get him started talking on what he had read.

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[JCreamerII]

I had the same thing with my algebra, he was Indian, and if we got him talking about India, we would miss class. He had one story about tossing a watermelon down a well, and using the bucket to scoop it back out. No refrigerator, so they had to improvize. He said that once in a while the watermelon would hit he side of the well and they would be spitting out seeds for a month, plus his father would be the cra.. out of them.

Jim C.

 

[N1GHTEYES]

Our organic chemistry teacher at school was great, but he had a thing about how certain words ought to be pronounced. Margarine, for example - he insisted on a hard GAR, i.e. marGARine. All we had to do was manipulate the conversation to use one of his pet words and he'd be off. We used to have fun trying to figure out which words would be most likely to get him going.

Tony

 

[Andrzejek]

Had the teacher long time ago who called students to the front of the class to answer. The guy was pretty old and was dozing off very easy. The trick was to keep talking while he was ‘out’. As soon as you stopped talking, he woke up.

One student was running out of ‘stuff’ to say while the teacher was ‘napping’ so without the pause he went on: “Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come…” Our laughter woke him up.


Have fun.

---- Andy

 

[N1GHTEYES]

When my wife was at university, she had a psych course with a lecturer who claimed he didn't believe that operant conditioning worked well on people who could think for themselves.

So she and her classmates agreed on the following strategy:

whenever he moved right, they would look bored, twiddle their thumbs, doodle, stare at the ceiling etc...

whenever he moved left, they would lean forward, look keen, pencils poised etc...

By the end of the first term, his average position during the lectures was so far to the left, he was practically standing outside the lecture theatre.

Tony

 

[strongm]

Ooh - operant conditioning - yes, remember trying that out rather successfully one evening on an unsuspecting friend in a pub whilst at university

 

[N1GHTEYES]

trying that out rather successfully one evening on an unsuspecting friend in a pub

OK, I'll bite. To do what? And how?

Tony

p.s. Actually I lied. My wife reminded me that that story was told by her psych lecturer about his days when he was a student. But otherwise the story is essentially correct.

 

[2ffat]

One of my Junior High School teachers told us about the time when he was an undergraduate at the University of Idaho. In chemistry class during the winter, they would wait for someone to walk by, throw sodium crystals into the snow drifts, and watch their reaction as the snow "caught fire."


James P. Cottingham
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