Re: Math question

From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 15:07:23 MST


> Thanks, Lee. This is just the procedure I wanted to know if there was a
> simpler version of before I did all that math :) but it counts as an
> answer to my question. I was hoping someone would say, "Oh, the answer
> must be" followed by a compact factorial expression.
>
> Emlyn, did your procedure eliminate cases where there were four heads or
> fewer in the sample, thus causing the biased sampler to report at least
> one tail? The original problem specified that the biased sampler reported
> five heads.

I thought Emlyn's estimate was rather ingenious, but no, it didn't
take that into account nor were his numbers exact, but it was an
interesting shortcut approach that gets damn close to the right
answer with a lot less work. I guess those of us who are spoiled
on spreadsheets and Monte-Carlo programs get lazy and fail to think
of creative shortcuts like that.

-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


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