According to Stanford University researchers, a standard penny with Lincoln’s head is heavier on one side, causing it to land tails up about 80% of the time. An older dime with dirt and oils may affect the outcome. It takes five or seven shuffles to put a deck of cards into a mathematically random order.
Forget what you know about statistical probability. If Persi Diaconis and the Stanford University researchers are right, spinning a standard penny (the one with the Lincoln Memorial on it, clean and shiny) will come up tail up about 80 percent of the time — not 50-50, give or take. a percentage in both cases, as we all expect. The reason: the side with Lincoln’s head is a bit heavier than the other side, causing the coin’s center of mass to lean slightly. And so, the flipping coin tends to fall toward the heavier side more often, leading to significantly more tails.
Heads I win, tails you lose:
Diaconis cautions that an older dime with accumulated dirt and oils could affect the outcome of heads or tails, one way or another.
A magician in his spare time, Diaconis also discovered that it takes five or seven shuffles, depending on your criteria, to put a deck of cards into a mathematically random order.
Diaconis, professor of mathematics and statistics, is the author of “Magical Mathematics: The Mathematical Ideas That Animate Great Magic Tricks”.
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