SPUG: Stick Riddle

Adrian Hands AEH at akc.org
Thu Jan 2 17:50:03 CST 2003


m3047 at inwa.net (Fred Morris) writes:

> my gut tells me Michael has found it.

You realize it was
the modification (norm_rand) to make the first break occur close to the
middle that increased the probability to nearly 100%.
Then, the modification to make it blindly choose the "left" piece,
instead of the "longer" piece,
for the second break, resulted in it picking the "longer" piece 1/2 the
time...
 1/2 of ~100% -> ~50%.

It seems unlikely to me that the "friend" based his answer on the idea
that it's easier to break the stick in the middle.


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