I guess our world has been run with unfair flips, LOL.
Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
101–110 of 193 posts
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#102Haven't read the paper yet but this is so weird because when I was a kid I noticed this phenomenon myself. I noticed I could reliably flip a coin such that when it landed it would land on the same side as it was flipped from. I was getting like 80% accuracy and I didn't even know what I was doing to achieve it. I could just usually feel when I flipped it that I "did it right". I used it a couple times to win coin tos…
Sounds like maybe you were doing something like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42184069
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#103The paper looks like it has a large sample size, but it actually has a sample size of only 48 testers/flippers. Some of the videos of those testers show very low, low-rpm coin tosses, we're talking only 1-2 flips. Where they also flipped thousands of times, presumably in the same way. So there is actually a very small sample size in the study (N = 48), where testers that don't flip properly (low rpm, low height, few…
> testers that don't flip properly
I think that's the point. It shows that people don't usually flip properly, leading to biased results.
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#104The paper looks like it has a large sample size, but it actually has a sample size of only 48 testers/flippers. Some of the videos of those testers show very low, low-rpm coin tosses, we're talking only 1-2 flips. Where they also flipped thousands of times, presumably in the same way. So there is actually a very small sample size in the study (N = 48), where testers that don't flip properly (low rpm, low height, few…
If you are doing anything with human subjects, even something dumb like having them flip coins for an hour while recording the results, you need approval from your local ethics board.
If you are doing self-experimentation, you do not.
48 "authors" is a bit extreme, but it's the norm to do some light human research with a half dozen authors as the subjects.
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or how when you look for something it always ends up in the last place you look, if it weren't there would have been some number of places you looked that were completely unnecessary.
Personally, I like to keep looking for the thing long after I've found it simply to prove the adage wrong. My keys weren't in the last place I looked because I checked three more places after I had them in my hand.
That's a dangerous game to play. What if you find the thing a second time?
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it unlikely? If I didn't read your comment I wouldn't see any problem there. I never saw anyone flipping a coin in a different way. It's just not done much around me.
If you claim to do a research on coin tossing, the minimum is to be aware on how people toss coin. The whole purpose of tossing a coin is randomness, so of course you want high and fast. If the result was that no matter how high and fast you throw is you get this bias, it would have been interesting. But now you just say "if you do things badly, things don't work".
That still sound valuable if people generally tend to do it badly? If only to provide an argument for doing it properly.
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#107There's a nice presentation of the paper here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QjgvbvFoQA In essence the effect comes from "precession" - the tendency of the flip to not be purely vertical but to have some wobble/angular momentum which causes it to flip in such a way as to spend longer on one side than the other. Depending on the technique this will have a greater or lesser effect on the fairness of the coin toss, ra…
Ah man, please use Bayesian statistics there... Well, the presenter says he doesn't know much about statistics.
The paper does use Bayesian statistics. Presenter is a pure maths PhD.
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#108FWIW, there is also a 2007 paper [1] that offers a physical explanation. [1] https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/diaconis_co...
That is referenced in both the paper and the video in fact. Apparently Diaconis presented a model which predicted about 51% preference for "Same side" and also did 2500 flips and said that about 250k flips would be needed to get 3 sigma of significance. So this paper decided to test it empirically and got to about exactly that number after 350k flips from a team of researchers.
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#109The paper looks like it has a large sample size, but it actually has a sample size of only 48 testers/flippers. Some of the videos of those testers show very low, low-rpm coin tosses, we're talking only 1-2 flips. Where they also flipped thousands of times, presumably in the same way. So there is actually a very small sample size in the study (N = 48), where testers that don't flip properly (low rpm, low height, few…
> only 48 testers/flippers
I assumed they did these coin flips were done using a machine. But I guess they wanted to test if human flippers because they wanted to make claims about the human coin flip phenomenon.
Re: Fair coins tend to land on the side they started (2023)
#110The paper looks like it has a large sample size, but it actually has a sample size of only 48 testers/flippers. Some of the videos of those testers show very low, low-rpm coin tosses, we're talking only 1-2 flips. Where they also flipped thousands of times, presumably in the same way. So there is actually a very small sample size in the study (N = 48), where testers that don't flip properly (low rpm, low height, few…
> testers that don't flip properly I think that's the point. It shows that people don't usually flip properly, leading to biased results.
But is that the case? The only way I've ever seen people flip a coin is by flicking it in the air with their thumb and either catching it or letting it hit a surface. I've never seen someone flip a coin like it was a die.