SoloTrip said:

A woman who gives birth to 5 girls might be convinced that her 6th child will be a boy because the odds of having 6 girls are so low. She would be wrong. The odds are 50/50 same as the rest.

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psi said:

Let's say earlier flips did affect the probability of later flips somehow. I get heads 9 times in a row and the flipping motion of the coin is influenced by some mystery force so that it's more likely to come up tails to "correct its mistake".

Ok, but what if I find out that before I did my 9 flips, the following even more unlikely sequence happened: (9 heads, then 9 tails, then 9 heads, then 9 tails, then 9 heads, then 9 tails.) If I get a tail next, then the coin flips are continuing a sequence that's far more unlikely than just getting 10 in a row. Which takes precedence? How far back in the history of this coin to we have to go in order to guess which unlikely sequence it's trying to avoid on the next flip?

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berdinwall said:

psi said:

Let's say earlier flips did affect the probability of later flips somehow. I get heads 9 times in a row and the flipping motion of the coin is influenced by some mystery force so that it's more likely to come up tails to "correct its mistake".

Ok, but what if I find out that before I did my 9 flips, the following even more unlikely sequence happened: (9 heads, then 9 tails, then 9 heads, then 9 tails, then 9 heads, then 9 tails.) If I get a tail next, then the coin flips are continuing a sequence that's far more unlikely than just getting 10 in a row. Which takes precedence? How far back in the history of this coin to we have to go in order to guess which unlikely sequence it's trying to avoid on the next flip?

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I cant answer your questions but I don't think you can answer mine either.

I think if you ran the original scenario out infinity times, it may come out to 50/50 whether the 10th flip is heads or tails.

However, if you walked up to a roulette table and saw the last 9 spins were black, what would you put your money on? What would most people put their money on?

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berdinwall said:

I cant answer your questions but I don't think you can answer mine either.

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Quote:

I think if you ran the original scenario out infinity times, it may come out to 50/50 whether the 10th flip is heads or tails.

However, if you walked up to a roulette table and saw the last 9 spins were black, what would you put your money on? What would most people put their money on?

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berdinwall said:

psi said:

but my point is that the coins don't know or care about which sequences of events we might assign significance to.

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best point yet but you guys keep saying little strings of words that would argue your point.

such as "considerably less rare" and uzziel said "probable? not exactly"

if these weren't contributing factors in your equation you shouldn't have brought them up....if they account for something they do, if they don't they don't which is it?

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koods said:

Wow. This is really way too complicated considering this simple fact: Each toss is independent of what happened before.

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KingKnowledge said:

koods said:

Wow. This is really way too complicated considering this simple fact: Each toss is independent of what happened before.

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That may be true. However, the probability of flipping 10 heads in a row may be less than the probability of flipping 9 heads and then a tails.

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AlgoRythm said:

if your chances are 50/50 the probability can never be changed. heres a question if you were to hold a hypithetical stick in your hand and swing it back and forth how long would the stick have be, so that the tip moved at the speed of light?

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Patlal said:

AlgoRythm said:

if your chances are 50/50 the probability can never be changed. heres a question if you were to hold a hypithetical stick in your hand and swing it back and forth how long would the stick have be, so that the tip moved at the speed of light?

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It has nothing to do with the lenght of the stick

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AlgoRythm said:

if your chances are 50/50 the probability can never be changed. heres a question if you were to hold a hypithetical stick in your hand and swing it back and forth how long would the stick have be, so that the tip moved at the speed of light?

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Alexestalex said:

Wow shroomery is st00pid

OP actually thinks this is a mathematical paradox when it's just simple probability lmfao

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Yeah only on the shroomery would this require this much discussion. just kidding though there are a lot of really smart people on here.

The answer is it's 50/50 though.