Try to be random?

[Dan]

You have to try to make a random set of 100 coin flips and then go to the table at the bottom to see your results. Most people are bad at approximating randomness.

http://faculty.rhodes.edu/wetzel/random/mainbody.html#3tests
Scroll down to Instructions for generating an imaginary series of coin flips: follow the instructions there, then hit analyze and scroll to the bottom.



I got no significant correlations on my first try with Prob Diff of -.06

P.S. To give this thread some serious discussion, do you believe that true randomness exists in the universe? If you knew all of the information about every particle at the instant of the big bang and you knew all of the physical laws of the universe, could you predict the future with complete certainty? Can anyone put up a sound logical proof for one side or the other?

 

[Krynn72]

Too much math, plus tl;dr

 

[Dan]

Too much math, plus tl;dr

There is no math required...

 

[soulslicer]

I kind of stopped reading once I saw this Office 95 Asshole..

I'll try it later and edit my results in here..

 

[Raziaar]

Things like coin tosses are not prone to being very random because of the way they can react in the air. I can make my coin land on the same thing every time. Only random random way I guess you could do it with a coin is like put it in a box and shake it around a bunch and then look at it.

As far as computer generated... nothing random on a computer is ever true random. It's pseudorandom because computer randomization is done based on algorithms, and nothing truly random can come from an algorithm.


But... I do believe randomness exists.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I thought you meant try to be "random" like a zany teenager tries to be "random". Haha, banana hammock. *~* I'm so random! *~*

I'm so glad that is not this thread.

 

[The Monkey]

No, I don't believe in randomness.

 

[Avoidist]

Quantum Mechanics.

/entire branch of deterministic thoughts.

 

[Teta_Bonita]

No! Quantum mechanics is just an approximation! My mind rejects it!

 

[Terminator]

Very interesting thread.

-0.08 using my best will to make randomness occur.

True randomness is my dads car and wether it has starting problems or not haha, for the life of us we cannot work out why and it appears completely intermittent! temperature, humidity regardless!
Mabye they should use the car as a 'perfect randomness engine'

 

[Dan]

with what kind of frequency does your dad's car stop working? Is it half of the time? Will it start working 5 min later or 1 hour later or 1 day later? Have you tried going through it one component at a time?

 

[Terminator]

with what kind of frequency does your dad's car stop working? Is it half of the time? Will it start working 5 min later or 1 hour later or 1 day later? Have you tried going through it one component at a time?

It'll eventually start if it does have the problem and once it's going it's fine, as it's a cheap 'throwaway' car we havn't put much effort into actually sorting the problem, nor are we going to.

It is pretty well half the time, it'll either have a starting problem for roughly 10 attempts or it'll go first time.

I have had done some quick diagnostics and i'm pretty certain it's related to the electronic fuel control system so could be air mass meter etc.

It is seemingly very 'random' for a car problem which is interesting, i havn't noticed any real correlation between temperature or humidity so it could be a mechanical randomn element....like a coin flip.

 

[Dan]

Hmmm... this philisophical talk has got me thinking. Is it possible for their to be numbers which are indescribable? Like an irrational number for which there is no way to write it in any notation.

Probably some Greek mathematician has already thought this all through, but what I was thinking was this: The set of real numbers is infinite, right. Even if you set the bounds to between 0 and 1, there are an infinite number of possible numbers in that range (0.01, 0.0005, 0.38519, 0.1935183, 4/9 etc).

Within that number line there is the set of rational numbers that are all described as a fraction of m/n, where both m and n are real integers. All decimal numbers can be written as fractions with base 10^x. So 0.38519 is really the fraction 38519/100000. Also, non-terminating decimals can exist as rational numbers like 1/3 is 0.33333...

But then there are irrational numbers like pi, or sqrt2 that cannot be written as a fraction and as a decimal they go on forever. Since there are infinite real numbers and only a subset of those infinite numbers is rational, there must be an infinite number of irrational numbers. Basically they fill in all of the infinitely small and numerous cracks between rational numbers. It therefore seems possible that there are irrational numbers which cannot be described in any way at all. Thus, are there theoretical values which we cannot describe mathematically and we cannot use? Could these values have certain implications for true randomness? It seems crazy to try to think of a number which has a very specific exact value, but we cannot describe that value except in general terms.

EDIT: okay I did some research and it looks like I am talking about transcendental numbers. I have a feeling that they are very important to the nature of the universe.