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General Science / The odds of a coin landing vertically? + 51/49 theory

« on: 22/12/2016 12:17:53 »

Is it possible or easy at all to calculate mathematically?
 
If you considered only the initial landing position and ignored the physics that happened thereafter, would it just be surface area of the sides X and surface area of the width Y where the odds would be 1 in (X:Y)?
Of course, if you included actual physics, that would reduce the odds as there is a considerable chance that the coin would flip over after landing vertically due to momentum, angle, etc.
 
Also, while I'm at it, another question (but pls answer the first):
 
I've read a few times a supposedly true fact that the coin has a 2% higher chance of landing on the upper side due to that side being upwards the same or one more amount of times compared to the lower side.
However, this does not make sense to me as no one would consider 0 flips to be a valid coin toss, obviously. Neither would they accept 1 flip as valid, most likely.
So it depends on the minimum amount of flips one deems to validate the coin toss. I would think that number would be 2, if I had to guess, so that would bring us again to the upper side having the advantage; but wouldn't it have a higher advantage than 2% then?
 
Surely, if you consider the minimum amount of flips that makes a coin toss valid + the realistic amount of possible coin flips in a real toss, wouldn't it be hard to arrive at the value of +2%? If I'm wrong, please explain why that specific value.
 
I have zero education in mathematics, so forgive me if I'm missing some major, well known equations. Odds and probabilities fascinate me and I like to think of them and try to apply them in games/uncertain situations etc. so answers to questions like these are most welcome.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Do things fall into or onto a black hole?

« on: 21/10/2016 11:36:52 »

I always hear people talking about object falling into the black hole, possibly going through a wormhole and exiting in another universe etc.

But isn't this fundamentally impossible? Black holes are completely solid, comprised of matter. Falling ''into'' a black hole is worse than saying falling into the earth from an airplane because the black hole is considerably more dense.

(And this is another thing. I'm supposed to say the black hole is infinitely more dense than the earth because it has infinite density. In principle, this is very easy to understand because the space inside it is completely filled up with 0 cracks inside, therefore infinite density; But isn't this mathematically unacceptable since there should be such a thing as ''the largest possible value before infinity'' in this case if I'm not mistaken)

Therefore, wouldn't something fall ONTO a black hole? I am aware that it would get shredded to bits before it could even reach it, but we're speaking hypothetically, of course. This is why wormholes never made sense to me. It would be pretty funny if in xxxx years we could come up with such an advanced technology, that we would be able to send a spacecraft which resists all of the black hole's forces to try to enter it, and the spacecraft just slammed into the black hole, killing everyone inside.

I would be grateful if someone more knowledgeable corrected me

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Isn't the statement ''there is no perfect vacuum in space'' logically flawed?

« on: 30/07/2016 00:24:01 »

 So, the definition of a vacuum is ''space devoid of matter'', which is straightforward.
However, to make a claim of a space without matter, you would have to say ''from point A to point B, there is no matter'' (or ''in between these end points there is no matter'' if you consider 3 dimensions).
Scientific papers say that there exists no vacuum in the universe because even in the most desolate parts of the universe there are about 3 atoms in a cubic meter. To me, this makes no sense and I drew this shitty illustration to help explain why: (EDIT: ignore the lack of a dimension here, this was kept basic just to show the point)



The green area (cubic meter) is clearly not vacuum. However, why isn't the blue area a perfect vacuum? Why isn't all the space in between these atoms considered vacuum?
Why would a cubic meter be used to show there is no vacuum since it is not a mathematically relevant unit? (As in, it is not a ''natural'' unit like the planck units)
Why couldn't I, following the same logic, say ''there are no atoms in this cubic centimeter of deep space; therefore, perfect vacuum exists.''?

Isn't then empty space/vacuum just equal to space? Isn't space/vacuum an entity through which particles and waves move and matter an entity off of which the same particles and waves bounce?
Doesn't any place in between matter/atoms possess the same properties as vacuum and why isn't it considered as such then?

I hope someone can clarify this; thanks for your answers in advance.
I am not a physicist or any kind of professional scientist but I wish to learn.

 

EDIT: I need to copy and paste this from another place where I wrote this for further clarification:

 

As I said, I'm not a physicist, but simply logically, the definition can't be exact.
Because the logic ''there is no perfect vacuum since there are ~3 atoms in a cubic meter even in the rarest parts of the universe'' is used to prove there is no vacuum, surely the statement ''there exists perfect vacuum since we know there are cubic centimeters in the universe which contain NO atoms'' must be just as valid because it uses the EXACT same logic, which absolutely nothing changed except for the unit of measurement.

You see what I mean? To state that there is or is no vacuum, you would have to state the end points between which are or aren't any particles. So why would you use a cubic meter to determine that? Why not the smallest possible unit you could use?

I guess the point of my statement is that I think it's ridiculous to state that there are no cubic meter-sized vacuums in the universe, because that has no relation to physics since it unnecessarily complicates the issue with scale.

I hope the question makes sense now.