Posted: Nov 18, 2018 8:59 pm
Thommo wrote:BWE wrote:Thommo wrote:BWE wrote:
But these are all tautological answers. My question is why does the coin flip vary around a bell curve? Why wouldn't it be always heads for no reason at all?
Coin flips are not distributed by a bell curve (AKA Normal distribution or Gaussian distribution), they are binomial distributions.
There's an important theorem in mathematics that governs the distribution of sample means from a wide range of arbitrary distributions, known as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem, which says that for large sample sizes the distribution of sample means is approximately normal regardless of the shape of the original distributions.
I think you understood my point though.
Honestly, not really. I can't discern any difference between the first question, for example, and the question "Why does counting work?" with the assertion "There is no reason it should.".
It's very difficult to tell what the question is after, and the statement makes no sense to me at all, I can't see what it's founded on.
It's more than why does counting work but it may have the same root issue. With the coin flip the question is why does the average hover around 50%? Maybe it's feynman's why do magnets work issue but I don't think so.