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Rolling Dice

Aug 30th, 2009 by

You have a choice to play one of three games for money:

Choice A: there are 6 dice in a box with which you are to roll a six

Choice B: there are 12 dice in a box with whch you are to roll two sixes

Choice C: there are 18 dice in a box with whch you are to roll three sixes

Which of these options has the best odds? Why? Note, that for some reason I know the answer, but my memory of stats has eluded me, so I have not written out the (simple) proof yet.

Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam, Post

2 Responses to “Rolling Dice”

  1. skh.pcola says:
    August 30, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    The odds are identical? Just a guess…

    Reply
  2. skh.pcola says:
    August 30, 2009 at 11:16 pm

    Okay, that’s certainly not intuitive, but it’s reassuring that it takes some non-intuitive probability calculations to decide:

    http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Newton-PepysProblem.html

    None other than Sir Newton himself! (Why does that sound wrong without the “Isaac?”)

    Reply

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