Category: Probability and Statistics

Experimental and Theoretical Probability Part 2

High School Mathematics, Probability and Statistics

This the second part of the series of posts on Experimental and Theoretical Probability.

In the first part of this series, we used a spreadsheet to simulate the rolling of dice 1000 times and automatically recorded the sums. We have observed that the sum frequencies are not evenly distributed (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

In rolling the two dice 1000 times, for example, we rolled a seven 156 times, while we only rolled a two 29 times.  Well, we want to think that this is just a coincidence, so maybe we could try it one more time. » Read more

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Experimental and Theoretical Probability Part I

College Mathematics, High School Mathematics, Probability and Statistics

This the first part of the series of posts on Experimental and Theoretical Probability.

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If two standard cubical dice are rolled, one red and one blue, the possible sums ranges from 2 = (1+1) and 12 = (6+6).

Now,  are the chances of getting these 11 sums equal?  For example, is the chance of getting a sum of 2 similar to the chance of getting a sum of 5?

Let us try to roll the two dice 1000 times.  Of course, we will not do this manually.  » Read more

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Using Mathematics to Win the Lottery

High School Mathematics, Math in Real Life, Probability and Statistics

Lottery Basics

Many of you are probably familiar how lottery works.  A lottery is a game where a smaller group of numbers is chosen from a larger group. If you bet on the right combination, you win the jackpot prize, which is usually staggering.

lottery1

Although there is a common concept about lottery, there are variations in different places or countries.  In this post, I will use ours as an example. In the Philippines, as of this writing, we have three types of lottery: 6/42, 6/45 and 6/49. Yes, you guessed it right, 6/42 means 6 numbers are randomly chosen from a set of numbers from 1 through 42. We use the 6/42 lottery in the following discussion. » Read more

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