Testing random

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Ned Batchelder wrote:

> On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 6:01:06 PM UTC-4, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn
> wrote:
>> Your programmatic "proof", as all the other intuitive-empirical "proofs",
>> and all the other counter-arguments posted before in this thread, is
>> flawed. As others have pointed out at the beginning of this thread, you
>> *cannot* measure or calculate probability or determine randomness
>> programmatically (at least not with this program).
> 
> You *can* estimate probability with a program, which is what is happening
> here.

No.  Just no.

>> I repeat: Probability is what relative
>> frequency (which you can measure) *approaches* for *large* numbers.  100
>> is anything but large, to begin with.
> 
> The number of trials in this program is not 100, it is 1 million.  You
> seem uninterested in trying to understand.

It still would _not_ a measure or a calculation of *probability*.  So much 
for “uninterested in trying to understand”.
 
>> What is "large" depends on the experiment, not on the experimentator.  
>> And with independent events, the probability for getting zero does not 
>> increase because you have been getting non-zeros before.  It simply does 
>> not work this way.
> 
> Again, if you look at the code, you'll see that we are not talking about
> the probability of getting a zero on the next roll.  We are talking about
> the probability of getting no zeros in an N-roll sequence.  I have no idea 
> how you have misunderstood this for so long.

You do not understand that it boils down to the same problem.  The 
probability of only having sons is _not_ greater than that of having
sons and one daughter or vice-versa.  And for that it does _not_ matter
how many children you have *because* it does _not_ matter how many
children you had before.  The probability for a boy or a girl is *always*
the same.  You are _not_ due for a boy if you have many girls, and not for a 
girls if you have many boys.  But that is precisely what your flawed logic 
is implying.

Learn probability theory, and use a dictionary in Python when you want to 
count random hits.

-- 
PointedEars

Twitter: @PointedEars2
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