Wikipedia:Unusual articles

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Deleted member 540360

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Just wanted to post a link to the Wikipedia: Unusual Articles page. Some fascinating stuff here for when you have nothing better to do.


I particularly enjoyed reading about the Monty Hall problem from the Mathematics and Numbers section. Not so much because of the nature of the problem itself, which I didn't really get, but because of the exceedingly passionate (verging on aggressive) disagreements it elicited from those involved.

 
Thank you, that's a useful page.

I've seen Monty Hall denialism turn very nasty.
 
Thank you, that's a useful page.

I've seen Monty Hall denialism turn very nasty.

Yes, this one seemed quite harsh (and apparently incorrect):

"You blew it, and you blew it big! Since you seem to have difficulty grasping the basic principle at work here, I'll explain. After the host reveals a goat, you now have a one-in-two chance of being correct. Whether you change your selection or not, the odds are the same. There is enough mathematical illiteracy in this country, and we don't need the world's highest IQ propagating more. Shame!"
Scott Smith, Ph.D. University of Florida[
 
Yes, the case I witnessed involved a maths professional, putting forward exactly the same argument as Scott in Florida, and ending in exactly the same kind of goat rage.
 
I do intend to make efforts to get to grips with the Mony Hall problem as probabillity is a subject I became interested in from my poker playing days.

Which reminds me of an argument I had with an experienced gambler about coin tossing. I simply could not get it into his head that previous results have no bearing on future results. That this is true might be somewhat counter-intuitive to the uninitiated but we are talking about an 'intelligent' betting man who should have known that the next coin toss is always going to be 50/50 no matter how many heads or tails have appeared in a row. He just wasn't having it and I ended up getting quite exasperated!
 
That sounds very like the "gambler's fallacy":

The most famous example of the gambler's fallacy occurred in a game of roulette at the Casino de Monte-Carlo in the summer of 1913, when the ball fell in black 26 times in a row. This was an extremely uncommon occurrence, although no more nor less common than any of the other 67,108,863 sequences of 26 red or black. Gamblers lost millions of francs betting against black, reasoning incorrectly that the streak was causing an "imbalance" in the randomness of the wheel, and that it had to be followed by a long streak of red.
 
An "imbalance" in the randomness of the wheel in favour of black would logically dictate betting on black!
 
It does sound strange, now you mention it – I wonder if it's meant to mean the gamblers thought the wheel was "accumulating" an imbalance, which would sooner or later have to right itself with a streak of red numbers.
 
Who knows.

But perhaps the red numbers used slippier paint/materials thus favouring the black numbers? That's just one example to show how a roulette wheel might have a bias - intentionally or not.
 

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