Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: ScientificSorcerer on 29/08/2014 03:14:23
-
MIND OVER MATTER
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsciencelens.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F06%2Fcoin_flip_s.jpg&hash=3b6b27ec5b30f47014779b05af9a64bb)
I have discovered a paradox, perhaps a quantum property in which the mind influences matter. I can prove it through a simple experiment which each of you can test.
The experiment requires just 1 coin, so each of you can test this if you wish.
I took a coin (a dime) went into my room and flipped it repeatedly until I got heads 5 times in a row (which took for ever) from there I did one of 3 things.
1.I took the coin to one of my unsuspecting family members and bet them
that the coin would land on tales and it did. I did this 10 times and I got
my bet right 8 times out of 10.
2.I took the coin to one of my unsuspecting family members and gave the
coin to them and told them to bet on tales and flip the coin. I did this
10 times and they got their bet right 7 times out of 10
3.I took the coin to one of my family members and told them what I had
did with the coin and bet them it would land on tales. The coin landed on
tales 8 times out of 10
The results were as I suspected, but this is were things got interesting, I went into my room and waited for about 30 to 60 minutes, I was just watching youtube videos to pass the time. Then I left my room.
I took the coin to one of my family members and lied to them, I said that I had flipped the coin as before (they were familiar with what I was doing by now) and I wanted them to flip the coin and to bet on tales. the coin landed on tales 9 times out of 10 [:o]
By merely saying that I had flipped the coin until it landed on heads 5 times in a row it did, their minds effected the experiment some how.
Besides that fact, they were wondering why I kept getting my bet right almost every single time I bet them before I told them what I was doing and that raises a paradox, to me the chances for the coin to land on heads a 6th time in a row was slim but to my unsuspecting family members the chances should have been 50/50 What is going on here?
It took me for FLIPPING ever to do this experiment, I just wanted to say that [;D]
What do you guys think of this experiment?
-
... to me the chances for the coin to land on heads a 6th time in a row was slim but to my unsuspecting family members the chances should have been 50/50 What is going on here?
What do you guys think of this experiment?
Your family members are correct , if it's a fair-coin the odds are 50/50 each time it's tossed : the coin has no memory of it's previous performance, see "gamblers fallacy" ...
The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than normal during some period, then it will happen less frequently in the future, or that if something happens less frequently than normal during some period, then it will happen more frequently in the future (presumably as a means of balancing nature). In situations where what is being observed is truly random (i.e. independent trials of a random process), this belief, though appealing to the human mind, is false. This fallacy can arise in many practical situations although it is most strongly associated with gambling where such mistakes are common among players.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy
-
On the other hand, you really wanted to get tails, and spent hours practicing the skill. You may be unconsciously rigging the result.
It doesn't explain the other people flipping tails, though...
Take the same coin, and see how it goes getting a string of heads. This will counteract any imbalance in the coin.
-
two words for you, Sorcerer:
Sample Size.
For a fair coin to show tails 8 times out of 10 is not particularly strange (I calculate that it would occur in about 9% of sets of ten).
I say either do the experiment you reported experiment 100 times, or do it once, but betting on majority heads or majority tails out of 100 coin flips instead of ten.
-
If enough people tried this test, as you conducted it, some would have a 100% success rate. The people with that rate and no knowledge of statistics would be amazed. Those who did not get such "remarkable" results would rarely remember or talk about the experiment.
As chiral SPO points out, your sample size is (laughably) small. I hope you can see this is so.
-
My "sample size" was small because it takes like 1 to 2 hours of flipping a coin repeatedly to get heads or tales 5 times in a row, the experiment took the better part of 3 days!
you try to flip a coin for that long and see how boring it gets [::)]
But I guess I see your point guys, I will re-do the experiment with 50 flips but I wont like it [:-\] I might not have the blind focus to do it though. But in the name of science I will do it!
-
We live in the 21st Century. Forget flipping coins. Just use the random number generator in Excel! :) It should be easier to influence a few electrons than billions of atoms.
-
We live in the 21st Century. Forget flipping coins. Just use the random number generator in Excel! :) It should be easier to influence a few electrons than billions of atoms.
See "Global Consciousness Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Consciousness_Project)" ...
BTW Excel has a pseudo-random-number generator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_generator) ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828795 , so not truly random.
-
Since excel generates pseudo-random numbers you can't use it.
on the other hand...
http://www.random.org/