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fast eddie

Chicago,IL.
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Aug 21, 2004, 11:34 pm

Can anyone tell me using the analogy of flipping pennies what you would have to get in order to equate it to a pick three straight, pick four straight and maybe even 5/39, 6/52 lotteries.
for example a pick four staight I think is 1,000 to 1
In in order to get a straight, am I flipping 40 pennies and they all have to land the same side or am I flipping 4 groups of 10 pennies and 1 to be different than all the rest within each group or am I flipping 1,000 pennies and they have to all land the same except for one or is it none of the above. Hopefully you get what I'm trying to say, otherwise I'll answer back if you need more infomation. Thanks Eddie

"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned"
johnph77

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Aug 22, 2004, 12:08 am

fast eddie -
Sad to say, they are not analogous. If there was a heads/tails method of accomplishing what you're proposing the total possibilities of the lottery would have to be a number that is equal to 2 multiplied by itself a specific - or any - number of times, and no lottery I've researched meets that requirement exactly.
It makes not a bit of difference whether one penny is flipped a thousand times or a thousand pennies are flipped once each, the expected outcome, odds and probabilities remain the same - and the possibilities can be found in Pascal's Triangle at that level.
gl
john

Blessed Saint Leibowitz, keep 'em dreamin' down there.....

Next week's convention for Psychics and Prognosticators has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

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Colin F

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Aug 22, 2004, 4:30 am

fast eddie
I'm talking off the top of my head here but if you had 1000 pennies and the winning outcome was to have say one head come up and the rest all tails isn't that eqivalent to your straight in a pick 3 ie 1000 to 1?
Colin
johnph77

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Aug 22, 2004, 5:18 am

Colin F -
There are 1.0715x(10 to the 301st power) possible outcomes of the thousand tosses. In all those outcomes the possibility of one head and 999 tails will occur 1,000 times, so the odds of that occurance will be 1::1.0715x(10 to the 298th power). A tad longer than hitting the straight Pick 3.....
gl
john

Blessed Saint Leibowitz, keep 'em dreamin' down there.....

Next week's convention for Psychics and Prognosticators has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

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Colin F

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Aug 22, 2004, 6:23 am

johnph77
I was summoned to dinner. It's non stop "Dinner is Ready" every 15 seconds until I come. I knew I should have deleted it.
I was only thinking of one throw with 1,000 pennies. Now let's see what is that ...maybe 999 pennies!
Colin
Colin F

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Aug 22, 2004, 7:44 am

fast eddie
Maybe, rather than tossing the coins above one's head unless one is prepared to head tail out of there in a flash and according to your name you should be alright one could empty a bucket of coins out of a window after checking for any heads below. This however raises the possibility of some questioning from other members as to whether the coins were equally worn and randomly distributed in the bucket.
Actually it's not a bad analogy as people can relate to the unlikelihood of all coins but one coming up the same.
Over to you Johnph7. Humor in the mathematics section - I'm starting to warm to this.
Colin
fast eddie

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Aug 22, 2004, 8:59 am

I have another question, when playing pick four if I get three out of four digits in exact order mathematically how far down the road did I get? I know I was as close to hitting a straight as I could be but was I really that close? After listening to johnph77 I don't know if I want to play anymore, or at least as much as I do. Thanks for the help. Eddie.

"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned"
hypersoniq

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Aug 22, 2004, 9:07 am

each digit drawn is 10:1
pick 3 of 3 is 1000:1 (or 3 successive 10:1 dvents)
pick 3 of 4 is still 1000:1
pick 4 of 4 is 10,000:1 (or 4 successive 10:1 dvents)
Since a penny toss is a 2:1 dvent, the closest analogy would be to toss 3 pennies, heads=even, tails=odd....

Have an EXCELlent day!
johnph77

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Aug 22, 2004, 12:47 pm

fast eddie -
You have 36 ways of having 3 of 4 in a Pick 4 drawing.
Number drawn is 1234.
You would have 3 of 4 with 123x, 12x4, 1x34 and x234, where x would be any drawn number. But 36 of these draws would be a true 3/4 win, the other four would be the (correct) 1234.
gl
john

Blessed Saint Leibowitz, keep 'em dreamin' down there.....

Next week's convention for Psychics and Prognosticators has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

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johnph77

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Aug 22, 2004, 12:55 pm

Colin F -
Those who would question you are thinking the bucket is half empty, you think of it as half full - if you have the correctly-sized bucket. How dare they!?
If they remain persistent, just hand the entire bucket over to them. The only place they'll be able to redeem 1,000 pennies is the bank, and you'll have the pleasure of watching them lug the weight around for all that distance. Even better, hold one of the pennies back - you can toss that one 1,000 times.
gl
john

Blessed Saint Leibowitz, keep 'em dreamin' down there.....

Next week's convention for Psychics and Prognosticators has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

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Colin F

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Aug 22, 2004, 6:29 pm

johnph77
There's something intuitively that doesn't seem right to me.
If I thrust my hand into a bucket of 1000 pennies to win if I pull out a Head what are my chances?
If I toss a coin 1000 times to win with a Head and the rest of the tosses Tails what are my chances?
If I throw 1000 pennies from a bucket to win if a Head comes up and the rest are Tails what are my chances?
The beat goes on
La de da de da ...
Colin
Bug

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Aug 22, 2004, 6:51 pm

Colin F,
I think this is a binary problem.
Grabbing one penny from a bucket yeilds a 1 in 2 possibility.
The last two are basically the same, and the number is rather large. 1 in 2^1000. more than my calculator cares to print out. Three pennies yield eight possible combinations or 2^3 = 8, and the number doubles with every additional penny.
Colin F

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Aug 23, 2004, 1:11 am

Bug
An interesting point because whatever you do on your Computer is at some stage translated into a binary format.
However, because the coins fall with no discernable order permutations don't apply. So 2 coins gives 3 combinations, 3 coins gives 4 Combinations etc.
To bring our picking of the coin from the bucket into line with the other two examples we must close our eyes, extract the coin in a level position and lay it on the ground and hope for a winning combination of one head and the rest all tails after we have extracted all the coins.
Bit off putting as we can visualise the inprobability with one Head and the rest all Tails but all the other combinations have equal probability. Maybe one day they will return 90% which would make things interesting. Yes, I know - watch out for the flying pigs - don't look up - messy creatures.
Colin
PS You can't always trust your intuition.
johnph77

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Aug 23, 2004, 3:28 am

Colin F -
Sorry, there's an oversimplification here. In a binary solution each coin would be addressed separately. If you have 2 pennies and you toss them 4 times, the probability is that you will have one incidence of two heads, one incidence of two tails and two incidences of one head AND one tail. But the binary solution precludes this and the incidences appear as HH, HT, TH and TT, or, more correctly, 00, 01, 10 and 11. Note that the odds of having one head and one tails is still 50% in any case, but the binary end address each coin individually.
gl
john

Blessed Saint Leibowitz, keep 'em dreamin' down there.....

Next week's convention for Psychics and Prognosticators has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

=^.^=
Colin F

Australia
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Aug 23, 2004, 5:45 am

johnph77
By this remark to Bug: -

"An interesting point because whatever you do on your Computer is at some stage translated into a binary format."

I meant only to acknowledge that all data is stored in binary in a computer; maybe displayed in Hex.
Colin

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