Experimental and Theoretical probabilities

[NOTE: Skim this whole post before doing the work; I promise it's a good idea.]

How can you get a feel for probability? It's all well and good to say the probability of getting heads is 1/2, but we know that if you flip a coin 2 times, you aren't guaranteed to get one heads and one tails. We could flip a coin 10 times and get all 10 heads. It feels less likely that if we flip a coin 100 times, all 100 will be heads... but at this point our intuition starts to fade. So we simulate!

Plan

Open Google Drive and start a new spreadsheet
Use the function RANDBETWEEN(smallNumber, bigNumber) to make a random number that is either 0 or 1: 0 for tails, 1 for heads.
Use the function IF(test, valueIfTrue, valueIfFalse) to make a column that says "Heads" or "Tails" depending on the first column.
Use conditional formatting to highlight heads.
Look for streaks.

As of 2014, in America, the odds of dying are 864 in 100,000. That is, in an oversimplified model, if you grouped people into groups of 100,000, and gave them each a number between 1 and 100,000, the people who got 864 or lower would be dead.
Use RANDBETWEEN() and IF() to simulate 1,000 people's year. How many die?

As you do these things, fill in this form

Need help? I made these; they might be useful. Sorry I sound tired... It's because I am.

Coin flipping simulations:

Odds of dying simulations:

Comments

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