mathematical question

furitive_revolution · Outlaw Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 127 City: Oshawa

hey,
last year in finite mathematics. we were going over probability. me and my buddy were thinking about how the probability of a coin bein flipped would result in a 1/2 chance of a head comin up and a 1/2 chance of a tail. well we were thinking that the height of the flip would and how many times it flipped would change and also air friction/wind resistance would change this. coudl this change it at all?

i know i'm likely wrong but i just want to know your thoughts so i can fully understand this

PEace
Brett

JHrod · Wakeboarder.com Freak Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 3144

well it would change the outcome of your flip most likely but the probability of a heads or tails is still going to be 1/2 so it really does not matter

furitive_revolution · Outlaw Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 127 City: Oshawa

but if it does change the outcome would that then not follow the probability of the coin being flipped?

Melanie G · Outlaw Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 230 City: Orlando

I thought probability is just the chance of what your outcome is. I don't think you take into consideration air resistance or how many times it's flipped. The probablity is just 1/2.

furitive_revolution · Outlaw Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 127 City: Oshawa

ok i understand now the probability thing now..i was just being stupid..anyways would it change the total outcome then?

Partyb · Posted: Mar 29, 2003 8:07 pm Post subject:

Dork says what?

JHrod · Wakeboarder.com Freak Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 3144

the total outcome is random anyways so the effect it does have doesn't matter

Bill Y Bob · Posted: Mar 29, 2003 9:49 pm Post subject:

yeah, it is always 1/2. I have a real math problem for yah. Prove infinity.

furitive_revolution · Outlaw Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 127 City: Oshawa

thanks everyone except partyb for clearing that up for me. and to partyb, go Bubb Rubb yourself. seriously, it was a question so go Bubb Rubb yourself

criminally_minded · Posted: Mar 30, 2003 4:45 am Post subject:

Heres something for you to mull over for a while. I have had a LOT of arguments with a 'student' friend of mine over this one.

Its a philosophy theory, relating to movement.

The theory is as follows. I'll break it down into points for clarities sake.

1. In any given movement, there are halfway points. (eg: If you want to move 2 inches, you have to move 1 inch first, and then another inch)

2. These halfway points also have halfway points (eg: To move 1 inch, you need to move 1/2 an inch first, then another 1/2 an inch)

3. Every set of halfway points will have its own set of halfway points, to the power of infinity (basically, you can divide anything in half an infinite amount of times)

4. Eventually, the individual movements, the half of half of half of half (etc etc) will be so small, that there won't actually be any movement.

5. If there is no movement in the individual 'halfway' movements, how can there be movement in the total 'whole' movement, after all, 1,000,000 x 0 = 0.

6. Therefor, there is no movement. Nothing in the world is moving. Movement is not real, its a hallucination, a figment of our conscience selves imagination, or any other crap you care to call it.

Now, I agree with this theory, up to point 3. After that they simply go against the basic laws of both maths and physics. Sure, if you divide something infinite times, its gonna be pretty damn small, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to half something so much that it becomes zero. If you divide 1 by 2 infinite times, you will always have something, even if its 0.000000(infinity)0001

I have argued this point to death with philosophy students, but they just WON'T SEE REASON! They are so infuriating because whenever you back them into a corner with LOGIC, they just look at you and say 'Oh, you just don't get it, you don't go to Uni' AHHHH!!! It makes me want to kill! Evil or Very Mad

Ummm.... I think I lost focus there... Mr. Green

these people just piss me right off.

Josh R · Posted: Mar 30, 2003 5:16 am Post subject:

My brain just popped CM... Laughing

criminally_minded · Posted: Mar 30, 2003 5:18 am Post subject:

Maybe 11pm on a sunday night wasn't the best time to post that Wink

JHrod · Wakeboarder.com Freak Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 3144

well i have to agree with you CM because for something to become zero you need to take a whole out not half because as you reduce something by half there will always be a slight portion remaining----------the movement may become to small to see but it is still moving through the half of the half of the half...etc.

Chales · Guest

I can't believe a philosophy student would try and claim that nothing in the world is moving. That's ridiculous. Now, it is possible to prove that the lengths are approaching zero, that's one of the big ideas with the limit in calculus, but it will never reach zero, because at any given point there is a value. Think of the graph of y=1/x . As x gets bigger and bigger, (more and more halves), y gets smaller (the length). Sure, y=0 as it approaches 1\infinity, but at a given point, no matter how big x is, y will never be zero.
That might all be a bit confusing but to tell the truth that's the simplest I could get it.

Here's a problem we've got that has to do with a little bit random numbers and infiniity:

Alright, it's been proven that pi (3.14...) goes on for infinity. It has also been proven that pi never repeats itself. Here's the dilema. As pi goes on for infinity, wouldn't the probability that pi repeats itself keep increasing, to the point where pi would have to repeat itself? Because it just keeps going on forever. Right?

wakeriderof87 · Posted: Mar 30, 2003 10:20 am Post subject:

yea the pi thing makes perfect sense, except for the fact that it makes no sense. Thats y i'm not a philosopher

Jello John · Wakeboarder.Commie Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 1936

How did they prove that pi never repeats itself? If it could repeat itself, it could repeat an infinite amount of times I guess. That would be crazy.

OttoNP · Addict Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 848 City: MI

CM,

Another problem with the dumby wumby philosopy students is step 4,

1,000,000 x 0 = 0

If you half something once you have to multiple the result by 2 to get it back, if you have it twice you have to multiple by four, if you half it an infinite number of times you have to multiple it by infinitiy and infinity * 0 is not 0. Also, if you write what they are saving in terms of x, y etc if will cancel and even if you did it that way and take the limit as x goes to infinity you will still get the "normal results"

There is a cool proof using fractures where you can have an object with a infintie perimeter inside a finite area, maybe if I get bored tomorrow I'll post it...

Nick
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criminally_minded · Posted: Mar 31, 2003 12:07 am Post subject:

Otto: That's exactly my point. They assumed they could introduce enough halfway points (half the distance) to reduce the distance to zero, whereby the infinite x zero section would work, but they can't reduce it to zero that way. Not possible. That is where they go wrong.

Man, it is SO good to discuss this with people who understand logic Mr. Green

DRAGON88 · Posted: Mar 31, 2003 10:23 am Post subject:

CM, nothing is moveing, and you know it!!! Twisted Evil

Sean_Brinston · Posted: Mar 31, 2003 10:26 am Post subject:

CM-If stuff doesnt move how do we get from one place to another? Confused

OttoNP · Addict Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 848 City: MI

CM's point was that stuff is moving, it was the dumb philosophy students that argued nothing really was.
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Sean_Brinston · Posted: Mar 31, 2003 2:30 pm Post subject:

oops sorry CM, you tha man

Partyb · Posted: Mar 31, 2003 8:12 pm Post subject:

Just my opinion furitive. Dork.

pooser · Wakeboarder.com Freak Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 4738

the first time i read it i aggred with you guys that motion exist but the as i read it i began to think... Lets use walking for an example. lets say your foot is ten inches long. if you are walking ten feet you can divide the halfway points to get like .000000000001 inches or sumthing this distance is much smaller than the length of your foot therefore your foot does not have to move to achieve this distance. Im prolly way off but im just trying to take a guess cause a buncha smart people cant be wrong or can they. Maybe they just tell us what to believe and we believe it cu z we percieve them as smart. anyways it is just a philisophical theory that can neither be proved true nor false.

jedsterr · Soul Rider Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 291 City: Star Idaho

I had a great running arguement with a philosophile about lotery.

I contend that your odds of winning a 5 digit lotery are just as good with the numbers 1-2-3-4-5 as they are with any random number sequence.

He said that you'd be less likely to win because you have have the correct numbers PLUS they have to happen to be the first 5 numbers.

logic logic logic.

Who are you with? Him or me?

OttoNP · Addict Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 848 City: MI

you are right
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Chales · Guest

You're right jedsterr. The odds of getting 1,2,3,4,5 are just as good as getting 7,2,6,3,9. Here's another probablitity thing you'll all like- or hate, but I warn you the answer isn't what you think.

You're on a game show. You can pick behind doors number 1, 2, or 3. There is a car behind one door, monkeys behind the other doors. You choose a door, but before it's opened, the host opens one of the 2 remaining doors to reveal a monkey. He then gives you the option of picking the other door instead. Here's the question- would the odds be in your favor of switching doors, staying where you are, or it's 50/50?

JHrod · Wakeboarder.com Freak Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 3144

Bill Y Bob · Posted: Apr 01, 2003 2:06 pm Post subject:

Today in Biology we were talking about infinity (don't ask how we got that far off of subject). anyways, our teacher made a pretty good point that the fact that infinity never ends is so mind boggling that many people can't imagine it. We think that everything has an end to it, so that exception is too complex for minds to handle. Twisted Evil

just my 3 cents

Jello John · Wakeboarder.Commie Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 1936

I'm guessing a 2/3 chance for switching. I thought about it, and I guess it would kind of makes a little sense if you thought of it with no chance of the open door, and so there is still a 1/3 chance if you stay, but I was kind of thinking that if you switched that you had a 2/3 chance. I'm trying to figure out why I thought this because it made total sense to me a second ago, but now I'm totally confused about it. I would've gone with 50-50, by the way, unless you didn't mention that the answer isn't obvious.

Leggester · Posted: Apr 01, 2003 4:49 pm Post subject:

I'll go for the 50/50/90 rule. You'll have a 50 percent chance of guessing right, but it's 90% chance teh one you pick will bek wrong. Wink

Jello John · Wakeboarder.Commie Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 1936