…to decide who cleans the house. Sounds pretty fair, after all, a coin toss is completely random isn’t it? Time to guess again.
Researchers in the United States have shown that a coin toss is inherently biased, and more likely to land the same way it started. This is due to the difficulty in ensuring the coin actually spins while in the air. Before you start rushing off to con your friends (or the Casino on Australia day), the effect is subtle and will only be noticeable to a casual observer after about ten thousand tosses.
Don’t worry if you’d like to make sure your decision making process is still completely random. One person tosses (making sure the other doesn’t see which way the coin is facing) and the other calls while the coin is in the air.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004 at 7:14 and is filed under Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.