The coin flip , the smashing equaliser of all odds , is not as random as it seems . When flipped by a human being , the odds are somewhat heap towards one side .
One famous Futurama episode showed a universe where everything is the same , except the outcome of each coin toss . If a tossed coin came up heads in one creation , it came up tails in the other . The comedy in the episode come from the changes that this random upshot – entirely up to the physical law of the world – induce . It turns out , though , that this mirror universe is unsufferable . While coin tosses correspond fifty - fifty odds , they do n’t actually run out that manner .
As usual , it ’s humanity that messes things up . When switch by a car , coins come up heads a unanimous fifty percent of the time , and tails the other fifty per centum . Put the fate of the coin in grubby human hands and the odds point slightly in favour of the side that faces up just before the coin is flipped . The side that was face up at the beginning of the flip has a fifty - one percent probability of landing cheek - up at the goal . Humans are not as exact as machines , and so the coin rotates around several axes rather of one . The extra rotation favors the side the original position , to a mensurable level . This is independent of the material that the coin is made out of . Scientists have tried the experimentation using coins made out of balsa forest ( and likely the labor of some very old-hat interns ) , and gotten the same answer .
So if the initial placement of the coin matters to the somerset , how did that alternate Futurama universe make for out the difference ? Did a character who liked to place the coin on their manus heads - up in one universe of discourse switching to tails - up in another ? Suddenly that universe was not just about the upshot of random luck on people ’s natural process , but the effect of elusive psychological decisions that had an gist one pct of the clip .
ViaThe Washington Post .
Photo by Kirsty Pargeter / Shutterstock
FuturamaPhysicsprobabilityScience
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