Talk:Coin flipping

Just noticed that this page on coin flipping looks a lot like this other one:

http://www.informationblast.com/Coin_flipping.html

That would be because it has copied WP - see lower down that page. Charles Matthews 12:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Am I the only person in the world who tosses guitar picks instead of coins? A pick whose faces are physically equal is far less likely to be biased than a coin . --Army1987 12:14, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Probably. The bias of the coin is, to my understanding, fairly small. Moreover, most people don't know what the bias is, so it's just as likely to help the caller as hurt them. I was almost a little surprised this article doesn't have info on biases for commonly flipped coins, given the detail of some of the other information. It seems like it must be pretty obscure.

According to the work by Persi Diaconis the bias is in favor of the side of the coin that is up before the flip. If the flipper is not careful about the starting configuration (for example pulling the coin out of his pocket without looking it), then the bias is greatly reduced, which I'd argue is a more realistic setting in most real-world uses of coin flipping then assuming the starting configuration is fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.207.28 (talk) 13:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

This section should make it clear that it's not just tossing the coin 3 times, but tossing it until one of the two sequences comes up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.134.208.194 (talk) 21:29, 6 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

You did that much math to decipher a coin toss???

You all scare me. :-) --Penta 07:29, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I append the mathematical section, cut by User:Grick recently. Charles Matthews 10:48, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am making what was warehoused here a page in its own right. Charles Matthews 11:35, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In the section under the same hdg, we have

Conversely, the 1972 movie of Graham Greene's novel Travels with my Aunt ends with a coin toss that will decide the future of one of the characters. The movie ends with the coin in mid-air.

and someone commented within the article

[Someone familiar with Greene's novel or the stage version should edit this to say whether they end similarly.]

Indeed they should, but the solicitation does not belong in the article!
--Jerzy (t) 05:29, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

Also the movie The Sentinal used coin tosses. 203.87.45.25 05:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

One of Practchet's Disk World novels features one of the witches calling "edge" during a coin toss and winning. Jon 19:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

What would be the quickest way to use a coin to decide between three choices? Off the top of my head, I could see flipping the coin in sets of three flips, where you go until only one choice comes up heads. What else? --Duozmo 21:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Flip the coin in sets of three. If they all land on the same side, repeat, else, the single result wins. Example: THT - no. 2 wins with H. Bogfjellmo 18:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Just flip it twice - one flip eliminates one option, the next splits the remaining two. The outcome is random so if it's simply a matter of choosing one you shouldn't need anything fancy. Richard001 19:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think what they meant was to decide between three choices giving each an equal weight. If you flip a coin only twice, eliminating one option each time, you are favoring the choice that is not involved in the first coin-toss (it essentially gets a bye). Bogfjellmo has it right. DC Nemesis_Talk 05:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Alternatively, flip the coin in sets of two until something other than TT comes up. Let the first choice correspond to HH, the second to HT, and the third to TH. On the other hand, the sets-of-three approach above works even with a biased coin (because the probability of THT is the same as the probability of HTT or TTH, since the coin has no "memory"). --66.57.63.226 (talk) 21:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

I have made beau coup cosmetic improvements to this section (wikilinks and grammar) ... it started innocently enough with finding and adding a link to The Twilight Zone episode, but then my OCD kicked in and it became a Project ... I'd better quit now before I read any of the other sections and end up spending hours on this one article! :-) —68.239.79.82 05:16, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Can someone explain why this should be here? It seems really out of place and complicated. It's not really coin-flipping at all. It's just a way to end a dispute.
Jay42 22:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

96.236.226.56 (talk) 14:50, 10 August 2016 (UTC) Because it serves the same purpose as coin-flipping, deciding whether Alice or Bob "won" with 50% probability and without the possibility of cheating by either party. Also, if the hash function is collision resistant, the string provided by Bob is unnecessary.Reply

I can't believe there is a section about fictional coin flips, but not in reality. Geez! Someone should start one.

• The city of Portland, Oregon got its name as the result of a coin toss.

Gregbard 05:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

What does Jonah and the whale have to do with the history of coin flipping, if the blurb itself says it has nothing to do with coin flipping? If this is an article on random dispute resolutions, that's one thing, but if it has nothing to do with the history of coin flipping, it seems like it should be removed.

The sailors on the beleagured ship cast lots (something like tossing a coin, in terms of leaving a decision up to a fate determined by the use of inanimate indicator objects) and Jonah was indicated by the lots as being the person whose fault (trying to escape God's will) had caused the storm that threatened the ship's (and its passengers') demise. Once he was tossed overboard the seas calmed, proving the decision to have been correct.96.237.177.108 (talk) 12:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

User: 83.31.210.1 deleted the entire "coin flipping in fiction" section. This has evidently been part of this article for a long time and has received multiple contributions from multiple users. It's my sense that this section is interesting, useful, and shouldn't be deleted wholesale without discussion first. I've put back the section pending any contrary consensus that may be developed here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arxiloxos (talk • contribs) 13:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

This section is admirably detailed... but sort of absurd. This whole section could be replaced by two little sketches or photos. 76.201.147.205 (talk) 04:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Should there be a mention of a coin landing on its edge? I've seen it happen, in fact I have it photographed with my cellphone. It hit the ground, bounced off, started spinning on its edge and when it stopped spinning it didn't fall to either side, it just stayed on the edge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.61.67.169 (talk) 01:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Coin flipping/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Last edited at 23:20, 19 April 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 19:52, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the statement "coin flipping was known to the ancient Chinese as 撒大苏打 ("ship or head"), as some coins had a ship on one side and the head of the emperor on the other" under the History section, "撒大苏打" means "sprinkling sodium thiosulphate" in Chinese and is more likely generated by someone randomly typing "sdsd" using a typical Pinyin input method. The citation that follows also has nothing to do with the term in ancient Chinese. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 我輩は犬である (talk • contribs) 21:36, 8 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

The Chinese stuff was nonsense, indeed. I reverted that edit. --188.100.59.215 (talk) 16:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

In the physics section, it is stated that, “rotation rate [of a flipped coin] was more accurately computed by attaching floss to a coin, such that it would wind around the coin – after a flip, one could count rotations by unwinding the floss, and then compute rotation rate as flips over air time.[21]” This sounds like it is saying that the floss wrapped around the coin in flight, and one could determine the number of rotations of the coin by unwrapping the coin. The floss did not, and was not expected to wrap around the coin. A flat piece of floss, about 3’ long, was used. One end of the floss was fixed to a stationary point and the other to the coin, so that, when the coin rotated, the floss twisted, and by counting the number of turns in the floss, one could determine the number of rotations of the coin, given that the floss ribbon was untwisted prior to flipping. The language of the quote is slightly ambiguous, so it is possible that this is what the author intended, however, the process should be described more thoroughly anyway. Unnilnonium (talk) 03:54, 30 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

I don’t feel comfortable editing the piece myself, and leave it to anyone to take the action. Unnilnonium (talk) 03:59, 30 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

"The party who calls the side that the coin lands on wins." falsely suggests - when taken literally - that the side touching the ground wins. Propose change to: "The party who calls the side that the stationary coin shows after landing wins." Anyone supporting? :) 2003:C8:B72E:EB00:1CCE:615:CE69:4997 (talk) 09:09, 7 November 2021 (UTC)Reply