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salt4034last Tuesday at 5:43 PM3 repliesview on HN

> testers that don't flip properly

I think that's the point. It shows that people don't usually flip properly, leading to biased results.


Replies

lcnPylGDnU4H9OFlast Tuesday at 6:22 PM

There is a [video presentation of the paper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QjgvbvFoQA) which does a good job of explaining the inspiration for the study within the first few minutes.

It sounds like what they were intending to study is the actual variance that is introduced, on average, by imperfections in throws conducted by humans. Unless that's mistaken, it's a fair point to consider the n=48 here. Did they discover an average that can be generalized to humans or just to those 48?

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arandomusernamelast Tuesday at 6:26 PM

Except that flipping a coin hundreds/thousands of time in a row is not a representive of how people will flip a coin a single time/few times.

fluoridationlast Tuesday at 5:49 PM

But is that the case? The only way I've ever seen people flip a coin is by flicking it in the air with their thumb and either catching it or letting it hit a surface. I've never seen someone flip a coin like it was a die.