probability

The title of the thread is a frequently stated (often without a proof) theorem in probability theory an statitistics. In another thread, someone pointed out to me that functions such as f(X)=0X+c and f(X)=X^0+c, where X is a random variable and c is a real number, are not random variables...

Has anyone else read Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Wiki? I've just started reading it today and it starts on a really interesting premise...

A photon is coming in where the arrow is. The red lines are half-silvered mirrors, and the green lines with ticks on their ends are full mirrors. The blue circles are detectors. Here's what I'm getting as the probability of detectors 1, 2, or 3 going off given that a detector goes off: Is this...

FCP: Free Choice Paradigm CD: Cognitive Dissonance The draft paper can be found at http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/keith.chen/papers/CogDisPaper.pdf. Chen argues that there is a widespread methodological failure in experimental psychology using the FCP.

Let's say you're attempting to test a coin for fairness. You toss the coin N times and get N heads (or tails)*. You know getting N heads or N tails should occur with a probability 1/2^(N-1). In other words, over an infinite number of trials of a fair coin, each N tosses long, 100%/2^(N-1) of...

I've seen a few of the veteran posters on here refer to probability theory from time to time, as a means of illustrating how implausible conspiracy theories are. At the same time, I also recall seeing someone use probability theory to demonstrate the reliability of witnesses. apropos the...

I need some help illustrating (to a friend who has mild woo leanings) how there's a significantly high probability that someone will have a premonition about anything that is in the news - esp re something/someone with a high profile I remember someone on the radio explaining the odds were...

I have a math question. Is anything not a 50/50 chance of being true, right, or correct? As an atheist I believe that there is no god but there may be. There is a 50/50 chance that god exists though. As with anything else. I will either wake up tomorrow or I wont. See how it goes My...

A friend of mine on a mailing list came across this math question. I gave him an answer, but I want to see if you all agree with me before I post it. He was at a Chinese restaurant with his wife and two friends. At the end of the meal they all got fortune cookies, the kind with lottery...

// probability of exactly r successes in n trials, // if p is the probability of success in one trial. // 0 <= p <= 1, 0 <= r <= n double binom(int n, int r, double p) { const int x = std::min(r, n-r); double d = 1; int i = 0, j = 2*x+n; while (i < j) { const int k = d<1 ? i++...

I was reading the Swift commentary about the dowsing trials. In it, a preliminary test is reported on, included what was required for passing, and a comment on the dowsers performing below chance. From the report: I have two questions: 1) How is the success rate determined (ie, 4 out of 6...

I was thinking about how to assess claims of reincarnation that we often read about. A bonus is that examining claims of reincarnation could also be used to examine claims of Near Death Experiences, stages of reincarnation (hell, purgatory, etc.), if certain people get priority, and if there is...

Take a look at the following story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=412386&in_page_id=1770 In an attempt to win the National Lottery, a syndicate of University professors and students devised a system that allowed them to 'rely less on chance'...

I listed all the years we started an economic recession for the last 2 centuries and sorted them by the last number of the year, 0 thru 9, as follows: # of events in years ending with number: 0 - 6 1 - 3 2 - 0 3 - 7 4 - 1 5 - 0 6 - 1 7 - 5 8 - 1 9 - 4 28 events No events in years ending...

This may be one of those questions that has no answer, because it's worded wrong. But it occurred to me... I understand the concept of probability, from a basic layman's perspective at least. You flip a coin randomly enough times, the occurrence of heads and tails will gradually trend toward...

Here's one which popped into my head the other day, and I'm not sure how to solve it. You have an mp3 player with an album containing ten tracks. You have put it on "random play". What is the probability that two or more tracks on that album will play out in their original order? They could be...

Hello, I am trying to work out the probability that a pack of trading cards contains new cards or cards that I already have. I am assuming that there are 100 cards in the set and that I already have 50 cards. Each pack contains 5 cards and all cards in a pack are different. If I define the...

I'm curious if this can be explained to a mathematically challenged individual like me: Standard Lotto 6/49 draw where six unique numbers from a list of 1 through 49 are randomly drawn: Is there any less chance that the same group of 6 numbers will be randomly generated more than once? I...

Wow! I thought my university produced shoddy research. Anyone care to tear this one apart?! ** Oxford University professor Richard Swinburne, a leading philosopher of religion, has seemingly done the impossible. Using logic and mathematics, he has created a formula that he says shows a 97...

Two weeks ago my friend (ex almost-girlfriend) asked me to visit with her and some friends. Now about 3 months ago she started re-seeing her ex-boyfriend from over three years ago. I immediately guessed that she was going to announce her engagement to this guy even though they have technically...

out of thes 2 which is a measurement or, can they both be measurements of the same thing and if so, why Odds Probability

There is a website claiming to increase your chances of winning the lottery, using a bunch of high level math algorithms and stuff “like trend analysis, linear- and route-regression, Fourier analysis, chaos theory - and other systems that make your head spin.” They claim that this is from a...

I had to share this one with you. Check out http://www.netlotto.org/ . For a mere $30 you get a program, written by Mark, that creates a number net that dramatically increases your chances of winning various lotteries around the world. Here's the theory behind it -...

Hugh Ross lists on his site 154 parameters he says are required for intelligent life to exist in the universe. Then, as far as I can tell, he assigns probabilities to each of these and concludes there is less that a 1 in 10^282 chance intelligent life would occur. He concludes that a divine...

I have 2 children, one is a boy. what is the prob that the other is also a boy? A) 1/2 B) 1/3 C) 1/4 D) Not enough information to determine E) Poorly worded question that involves subjective determination

I was reading the thread about the sports betting and was wondering about something. Let's say I devise a game like so: You pay me something. I flip a coin and you call it. If you get it right you win twice what you paid, but if you get it wrong you get nothing (double or nothing). However...

Hello! Quite new here so hope I'm posting this in the right place! I got into a debate/argument with a friend recently about the Martingale gambling system (playing roulette specifically), in which you increase your bet each time you lose in order that 'when you eventually win' you have...

If a person is asked 40 questions, each of them binary(yes or no type questions), then what is the probability of getting at least 35 of them correct? Help much appreciated. :)

I have always been great at math, but unfortunately I'm terrible at statistics, and wish to learn more. This one made me curious as to how it was calculated: From here: http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/m/ma/magical_thinking.html (A nice little article btw. Take a look) ;)

I was tinkering around this past weekend and sat down and helped write some Perl code to investigate something that interests me and combines probability, statistics, and skepticism. Since some people see random bundles of words from the Bible (selected through an equidistant letter skip, ie. a...