probability

More Sides or More Dice?

My previous post looked at rolling 5 six-sided dice as an approximation of a normal distribution. If you wanted a better approximation, you could...

0 replies - 1060 views - 05/01/13 by John Cook in Articles

Rolling Dice for Normal Samples in Python

A handful of dice can make a decent normal random number generator, good enough for classroom demonstrations. I wrote about this a while ago. My original post...

0 replies - 2470 views - 04/30/13 by John Cook in Articles

I'll Be in Vegas, Trying to Win Against the House

In fact, I’m going there with my family and some friends, including two probabilists (I mean professionals, I am merely an amateur), with this...

0 replies - 1262 views - 04/23/13 by Arthur Charpentier in Articles

More on "Staggering Odds" - Visualizing Probabilities

Following my previous post, a few more things. As mentioned by Frédéric, it is – indeed – possible to compute the probability of all pairs. More...

0 replies - 1072 views - 01/05/13 by Arthur Charpentier in Articles

An Extended Probability Distribution Chart

Lawrence Leemis published a chart in 1986 showing the relationships between around 20 probability distributions. I made an online version of this...

0 replies - 858 views - 12/17/12 by John Cook in Articles

On Sleeper Theorems

I’m using the term “sleeper” here for a theorem that is far more important than it seems, something that you may not appreciate for years after you first...

0 replies - 2137 views - 12/11/12 by John Cook in Articles

Higher Moments of Normal Distribution

Sometimes a little bit of Python beats a Google search.Last week I needed to look up the moments of a normal distribution. The first two moments are common...

0 replies - 2280 views - 11/05/12 by John Cook in Articles

Probability by the Bucketful

Suppose you have a large number of buckets and an equal number of balls. You randomly pick a bucket to put each ball in one at a time. When you’re done,...

0 replies - 2154 views - 10/08/12 by John Cook in Articles

Uncertainty and Risk in Software Development (2 of 3)

[In case you missed it, part 1 of 3] There are future events whose impact can have a negative outcome or consequence to our project. A future event can...

0 replies - 3454 views - 07/11/12 by Dalip Mahal in Articles