51–60 of 243 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There almost certainly is but you can’t collect the data. At some point quantum effects will come into play too. Theoretically all physical processes are predictable, but in practice there is a limit.
Had the pleasure of meeting Alain Aspect once who would definitely have, at that time at least, argued the opposite.
Now I really want physical loaded dice which follow the gambler's fallacy! Is it too crazy of an idea?
Well, a little micro mechanical device offsetting the internal balance could work, though the balance change would have to be pretty large to bump the probability of any one face up significantly.
Now I really want physical loaded dice which follow the gambler's fallacy! Is it too crazy of an idea?
Well, a little micro mechanical device offsetting the internal balance could work, though the balance change would have to be pretty large to bump the probability of any one face up significantly.
A great application for this is in randomizing playlists. My friends, who are also CS grads and should know better, have often complained that their MP3 players, CD carousels, etc play the same music too often claiming that the random is broken, when a song repeating in a short period of time or other songs never playing is what you would expect from a truly random selection. Using this algorithm, you'd be sure to he…
This is also an example of users saying they want one thing (randomness) when really they want something else (variety).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Make them from a substance that leaves a tiny amount of residue on any surface it's left on for more than a small amount of time. Any time a die is rolled (and then left unperturbed for a short amount of time), that face becomes lighter.
Wouldn't this be the opposite of what you want? You'd weigh down the current bottom face, making that face more likely to be on the bottom for future rolls.
I'm probably very wrong, but I still feel there is some undiscovered science when it comes to RNG and the fallacy of the maturity of chances ( Gambler's Fallacy ). Einstein believed the universe was deterministic. Just because it appears to us that there is no correlation between independent events ( the roll of a dice ), does not mean that there isn't some underlaying variable that we are unable to measure or percei…
There almost certainly is but you can’t collect the data. At some point quantum effects will come into play too. Theoretically all physical processes are predictable, but in practice there is a limit.
I want to be clear that my point is not merely a technical one. I'm not just saying "it's technically impossible to have complete knowledge," I'm saying that it is physically, mathematically impossible. The laws of physics do not allow it. One might argue "maybe it's not possible, but if we did know the complete quantum state of the universe, the universe would be deterministic and we could predict everything," but this is equivalent to saying "if the laws of physics were different, then the universe would be deterministic."
Edit: To the distinction you make between "physical" and "quantum" processes: There is no distinction. Quantum effects do diminish in magnitude with increasing size, but they never truly go away. You can predict the motion of macroscopic objects with what may seem to be an arbitrarily high degree of certainty, but in truth you can never have 100% complete knowledge of even macroscopic properties. I still disagree with your claim that the universe is deterministic in any way, even if you conveniently exclude systems for which quantum effects are substantial.
Now I really want physical loaded dice which follow the gambler's fallacy! Is it too crazy of an idea?
A great application for this is in randomizing playlists. My friends, who are also CS grads and should know better, have often complained that their MP3 players, CD carousels, etc play the same music too often claiming that the random is broken, when a song repeating in a short period of time or other songs never playing is what you would expect from a truly random selection. Using this algorithm, you'd be sure to he…
Many music players have done this for a long time. In fact I believe that's part of the reason why they refer to that function as "shuffle" rather than "random"
'Random' was better, especially when there were players that would play "random album" which was great.
You're right that shuffle has been the standard for a long time, the last actual "random" for singles I remember was napster back when it was popular.
I often use google "flip a coin"[1] for stupid things and the other day I was wondering why almost every single time it came up heads. I started to wonder if there was a browser rng problem or the code was crazy etc. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=google+flip+a+coin
Update: Heads stayed ahead by a few for quite a while, until they tied at 45 each. It's a race to 50, my money is on tails - it's due for a comeback!
Update: Tails takes the lead, 46-47!
Update: 47-49 Tails is in position to strike!
Update: Tails wins! 48-50! (two more clicks to make a sum of 100 results in a perfect 50/50 split)
It's surprisingly fun to anthropomorphize heads vs tails, and commentating on their battle
Now I really want physical loaded dice which follow the gambler's fallacy! Is it too crazy of an idea?
You could just use a deck of cards with numbers on them. That's the simplest way to do "Gambler's Fallacy Dice" IRL. For example, there's a popular Catan expansion pack that replaces the dice with a deck of cards with numbers on them for just this reason, because in Catan each roll of 2D6 represents different regions of the map paying out so if a number never comes up it never pays out.