Saturday 25 April 2009

Converging Towards

In mathematics probability is represented by a number between 0 and 1. If something is impossible then it gets a zero and if its certain it gets a one. Take the tossing of a coin. You either get a heads or a tails so the probability of heads or tails is 1. Heads is 0.5 and so is tails.

If you have a four-sided spinner which is labelled a, b, c and d then the probability of any of those letters is 0.25 as long as there is no bias in the spinner. There should also be no bias in the coin but even if the coin is weighted to favour one side, there is still the opportunity for the coin to land on the other side. the probability may not be 0.5 but it will have some value.

The phrase to learn is 'converging towards'. If you toss the coin enough times then the relative frequency will converge towards 0.5. The more you spin the spinner, the more convergence towards 0.25 for each of the letters.

That sums it up.

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