Moderated Coin Flipper

[jsfisher]

...
Statistics is guessing... not determining.
...

That's a keeper.

 

[Leumas]

... Over time, they do in fact converge on an average 50/50 distribution, just as we'd expect.

No they do not... and that is proven by anyone who has tried to run the app.

Your repeated assertion is proven incorrect by just running the app.... and repeating it over and over will not make it converge to a truth.

But moreover... I don't think you know the difference between converge and oscillate.

 

[Leumas]

The worst part of this is, the byte array he downloaded already proves the point raised in the OP: Divide those bytes by where they fall on the number line relative to 127, and we see that there's an almost perfect 50/50 split. This is exactly the prediction that acbytesla made, and that Leumas is responding to in the OP.

An almost perfect??

Hahaha... now that is irony.

And no... in fact the MANY FILES I recently downloaded prove nothing of the sort and not even the one I had before... 20 more tails than heads is not almost exactly anything.

And the other files I downloaded had 18, 105, 83, etc. etc. etc.

I did not find not even one file (out of 20 I downloaded) that had ALMOST EXACTLY anything.

Which proves precisely the opposite of your wished upon results.... try it out for yourself... you have psion10's link.

Repeating your proven wrong assertion will not make it converge to a truth.

 

[jsfisher]

No they do not... and that is proven by anyone who has tried to run the app

Your app is incapable of proving anything. It is a demonstration. It implements a simplified model of coin-flipping. The quality of the coin-flipping simulation depends directly on the correctness of the model and the algorithms used to implement it (including that for random number generation).

But proof? Not a chance.



(See what I did there?)

 

[Leumas]

Very early in the text, The Art of Programming, Volume 2, the author presents his whiz-bang algorithm for (pseudo-)random number generation. Starting with a standard random number generator approach, it continued with a collection of manipulations to compound the randomness with some steps in the algorithm selected at random just to compound the randomness even further.

Truly this would be a fantastic random number generator with all its random randomness.

...'cept it wasn't. And that really was the point.

What is that point... because one guy failed in something then ALLLLLLL are bound to never succeed??? Case closed???

Have you heard of Cryptographic RNGs... did that guru of yours even know about it when he wrote that antiquated book (1981 CE).

And why are you even rehashing this now... you already admitted the error of the above statement.

In all seriousness, I think you are focusing too much on the whole "true" random number generator thing. The pseudorandom number generator provided by the standard Javascript implementations is actually very good. Your attempts to introduce atmospheric noise data is problematic and not likely to produce a clean result. On the other hand, the PRNG function is well behaved and robust.

 

[Leumas]

Your app is incapable of proving anything. It is a demonstration. It implements a simplified model of coin-flipping. The quality of the coin-flipping simulation depends directly on the correctness of the model and the algorithms used to implement it (including that for random number generation).

But proof? Not a chance.

(See what I did there?)

Yes... you are right... I was speaking not in a scientific "proof" (which science does not do)... but rather in DEBUNKING proof... just like science does by DEMONSTRATING the error.

My app debunks (the D in QED) his and your and everyone's claim that it "converges".... QED!!!


(see what I did there)

 

[jimbob]

My understanding is the following:

1)
Other posters have stated the number of integers above and below 127 (IIRC)

2) That means that the list of numbers is published before the event.

3) You have used something to generate a pseudorandom seed number to look up the value in the table mentioned above.

4) This is difficult to predict but that's just because there are some obscured variables not because it is random. If you gave the same input conditions to your script, it would produce the same output.

5) That is nonrandom. If you have a truly random process, say the probability of tunneling through an energy well within a certain timeframe then not only you, but nobody (including the universe) ”knows" beforehand whether that event would happen,

6) If my understanding of your approach is correct, if you control for the input conditions you could reproduce your results every time. The look up table is superfluous and adds no randomness

 

[Leumas]

That's a keeper.

Good... keep it... you are welcome.

Why have you not answered

...
But... let's see if you can answer these questions


Let's say that one picks the 20th card from the right side of a shuffled and spread out deck of cards every time.

That is not just deterministic... it is not even random

But the deck is shuffled before one picks the 20th card from the right.

Now the deck is not even random numbers... it is the same deck of cards... no?

Do you think anyone can determine whether a red (diamonds/hearts) or black (clubs/spades) card will be drawn??

So

• We have the same deck of cards... no random numbers or changing at all.
• We have the same card position picked every single time... not random or not even unknown... fully determined
• But the cards deck is shuffled before every pick... from the same deck... from the same position

Is the resulting pick (red or black) random?

Is it deterministic? If you say yes... then by whom or what?




.

 

[Leumas]

My understanding is the following:
<snip rehashed stuff>

Can you answer the questions in this post... or this post.. or the one below?

Let's say that one picks the 20th card from the right side of a shuffled and spread out deck of cards every time.

That is not just deterministic... it is not even random

But the deck is shuffled before one picks the 20th card from the right.

Now the deck is not even random numbers... it is the same deck of cards... no?

Do you think anyone can determine whether a red (diamonds/hearts) or black (clubs/spades) card will be drawn??


So

• We have the same deck of cards... no random numbers or changing at all.
• We have the same card position picked every single time... not random or not even unknown... fully determined
• But the cards deck is shuffled before every pick... from the same deck... from the same position

Is the resulting pick (red or black) random?

Is it deterministic? If you say yes... then by whom or what?

 

[jsfisher]

Very early in the text, The Art of Programming, Volume 2, the author presents his whiz-bang algorithm for (pseudo-)random number generation. Starting with a standard random number generator approach, it continued with a collection of manipulations to compound the randomness with some steps in the algorithm selected at random just to compound the randomness even further.

Truly this would be a fantastic random number generator with all its random randomness.

...'cept it wasn't. And that really was the point.

What is that point...

I am not surprised you missed the point.

The point made in the book, and important here, is that your approach of throwing things together that all sounded random in your head doesn't necessarily make the result more random (or even random at all).

...
And why are you even rehashing this now... you already admitted the error of the above statement.

In all seriousness, I think you are focusing too much on the whole "true" random number generator thing. The pseudorandom number generator provided by the standard Javascript implementations is actually very good. Your attempts to introduce atmospheric noise data is problematic and not likely to produce a clean result. On the other hand, the PRNG function is well behaved and robust.

What error would that be? I am at a loss as to how you are connecting a statement about the quality of one particular pseudorandom number generator to one about the pitfalls of naive "improvements" to random number generator algorithms.

You do that a lot, by the way. You often take two completely unrelated statements to claim some non-existent contradiction.

 

[jsfisher]

Yes... you are right... I was speaking not in a scientific "proof" (which science does not do)... but rather in DEBUNKING proof... just like science does by DEMONSTRATING the error.

My app debunks (the D in QED) his and your and everyone's claim that it "converges".... QED!!!

It is strange you say that. When I run your app repeatedly, I see the running averages getting closer and closer to 50%. It is a bit of a noisy path, but it looks to be converging.

You app behavior is consistent with acbytelsa's statement. Debunking would be something else.

 

[Leumas]

I am not surprised ...

New red herring to avoid answering simple questions (in this post) that debunk your above statements fully.

Answer the questions... stop avoiding them... the answers debunk all you have to say about randomness which you said you are agnostic about.

 

[Leumas]

It is strange you say that. When I run your app repeatedly, I see the running averages getting closer and closer to 50%. It is a bit of a noisy path, but it looks to be converging.

You app behavior is consistent with acbytelsa's statement. Debunking would be something else.

Nope... that is not true... and is arrantly demonstrated by just running the app.... anyone who runs the app can see for themselves.

Do you know what convergent means? Define it!

 

[Leumas]

By the way... I am not sure I mentioned it or if anyone realized...

Coin Flipper 4 runs on any browser on any machine.

• It will run on a Mac (of any kind)
• It will run on any Windows machine (of any kind)
• It will run on any Linux OS of any flavor on any machine
• It will run on an Android machine of any size or orientation or kind
• It will run on every iOS smartphone or tablet
• It will run on Amazon Fire tablets

So long as you have a browser on the OS or machine you are using that complies with not really antiquated standards.

I have tried it on Windows, Linux, Mac, iPhone 5, 6+, iPad 6, Android (oreo) LG Stylo 4 phone and Amazon 9" Fire Tablet.

 

[theprestige]

No they do not... and that is proven by anyone who has tried to run the app.

Your repeated assertion is proven incorrect by just running the app.... and repeating it over and over will not make it converge to a truth.

But moreover... I don't think you know the difference between converge and oscillate.

Over the series, the oscillations damp down, staying closer and closer to the 50/50 line. The oscillations converge on 50/50. Q.E.D.

 

[Leumas]

Over the series, the oscillations damp down, staying closer and closer to the 50/50 line. The oscillations converge on 50/50. Q.E.D.

No they do not... you are just bare asserting this... as evinced by running the app.

Had you run it at all you would have seen for yourself.

Try it... your bare assertions are proven wrong by FACTS.

You do not need even to do that... just THNINK about it...

If you do 10^9 flips and you get 50%... the very next flip... just ONE... will totally topple the thing over.... if you do 10 more and get 7 heads and 3 tails ... your done.

It will forver oscillate like this although you are correct it is closer to the 50%... BUT NEVER CONVERGES on it.

Maybe you can handwave that 10^90 might do it... but I would like to see you do that... until you do it... it remains only logical that the very next flip will topple the whole thing.

You do know that every coin flip is not bound by what the previous 10,000,000,000,000 have done... right?

The next coin flip is not going to say... ah the previous ones all turned out so that one more head is needed and it will be 50% so I better comply and add my result to make it 50%.


Repeatedly bare asserting this error of yours will not ever make it converge to any truth.



.

 

[theprestige]

No they do not... you are just bare asserting this... as evinced by running the app.

Had you run it at all you would have seen for yourself.

Try it... your bare assertions are proven wrong by FACTS.

You do not need even to do that... just THNINK about it...

If you do 10^9 flips and you get 50%... the very next flip... just ONE... will totally topple the thing over.... if you do 10 more and get 7 heads and 3 tails ... your done.

It will forver oscillate like this although you are correct it is closer to the 50%... BUT NEVER CONVERGES on it.

Maybe you can handwave that 10^90 might do it... but I would like to see yo do that... until you do it... it remains only logical that the very next flip will topple the whole thing.

You do know that every coin flip is not bound by what the previous 10,000,000,000,000 have done... right?

The next coin flip is not going to say... ah the previous ones all turned out so that one more head is needed and it will be 50% so I better comply and add my result to make it 50%.


Repeatedly bare asserting this error of yours will not ever make it converge to any truth.



.

Eppur si muove.

Whichever app you run - yours, mine, jsfisher's - the running average of tosses over the series converges on 50% heads and 50% tails.

That's the result I got from runs of your app. That's the result you got from running my app. That's the result that acbytesla predicted. Q.E.D.

 

[jsfisher]

Nope... that is not true... and is arrantly demonstrated by just running the app.... anyone who runs the app can see for themselves.

I did use the app. With 10,000 flips per trial, no "edge case", using the base generator I got:

Trials | %-heads
1 | 50.8600
10 | 49.9930
50 | 49.9742
100 | 49.9871
200 | 50.0265
500 | 50.0411
1000 | 50.0178

Noisy, as I said, but it does appear to be narrowing in on 50% after 1,000 X 10,000 flips.

(This is, of course, assuming the pseudorandom number generator in use is suitable for a sequence of 10,000,000 values--I strongly suspect it is--and that the programming language is not introducing any errors in numerical precision.)

 

[Leumas]

Eppur si muove.

Whichever app you run - yours, mine, jsfisher's - the running average of tosses over the series converges on 50% heads and 50% tails.

That's the result I got from runs of your app. That's the result you got from running my app. That's the result that acbytesla predicted. Q.E.D.

You never ran mine... and I doubt very much your ran jsfisher's.

But here have a look at this sample run of 95E+7 and 1E+9

That is 10⁹ flips

Now observe how it rives your assertion asunder.... all one has to do is LOOK... and your bare assertion is definitively and irrefragably proven wrong.

Look what happens to the running average between run #95 and #100.

At run #95 the running average is 50.0001 and 49.9999

If your assertions had any validity whatsoever... the next run of 50,000,000 coin flips ought to have made it even closer to 50%... no.

But as can be seen by just looking...

At 950,000,000 flips the running average was 50.0001% to 49.9999%
At 1,000,000,000 flips the running average is 50.0010% and 49.9990%

That is a factor of 10 jump IN THE WRONG direction.

At run #95 there was 950 more heads than tails. At run #100 there was 10,000 more heads than tails.
And if you look at the averages of each run you will not fail to notice the wild OSCILLATIONS... observe runs #88 and #89.... and runs #95, #96, #97.

So no... the FACTS rive to smithereens your BARE ASSERTIONS.... no matter how many times you insist on repeating the error it will not ever converge onto truth.

[IMGW=550]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/NotConvergent.png[/IMGW]
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[JimOfAllTrades]

If you do 10^9 flips and you get 50%... the very next flip... just ONE... will totally topple the thing over.... if you do 10 more and get 7 heads and 3 tails ... your done.

I think the convergence mentioned is not across multiple runs but over the number of trials in any one run. The more trials you have, the closer you get (converge on) to an even 50/50 split.

It will forver oscillate like this although you are correct it is closer to the 50%... BUT NEVER CONVERGES on it.

In this case converge is being used as converge toward something, in this a 50% average. You can converge toward something without ever reaching it, i.e. approach asymptotically.