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To: jcholewa who wrote (128089)	11/10/2000 4:42:47 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1571066

> The actual probability of 500 tails in 2,000 tosses is 500!*1500!/2000! far more than 1 in 2^2000. > 1 in 2^2000 is for the chance that the first 500 tosses are tails and the last 1500 tosses are heads, > or simply any single sequence of 2000 results. Hmmm. Lemme test that out with a smaller sample set. JC, Oh my god, I can not believe you guys are still going on about this mathematical exercise. In the meantime a reporter from the Wall Street Journal wants to do an interview with me re after hours. Should I tell him that everything I know I learned at your site? <g> Oh, and how much $$$ should I ask for the interview? LOL ted

To: jcholewa who wrote (128089)	11/10/2000 4:53:20 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571066

Dear JC: You are somewhat right, but the example is wrong in that n = 4 not 3! The exact formula for the probability of x number of heads over n tosses is (x!(n-x)!)/(2^n). For more general case of at least x heads, it is the sum from j=x to n of (j!(n-j)!)/(2^n). However, the result comes very close to a Gaussian (Normal) distribution for large n where the mean m is n/2 and the standard deviation is about sqrt(n)/2 or 22.4. I am not at home, otherwise it would be easy to look it up (the exact term for the coin toss distribution curve is a "Binomial Distribution"). I hope this clears it up (Way OT). Pete