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Prestor Jon wrote:
Probability is a waste of time.

This is a joke, right?

 Peregrine wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Probability is a waste of 8/10 of the time.

This is a joke, right?

corrected his typo

 Da Boss wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
So for those who haven't heard, today a GCSE maths question went viral after numerous students complained it was too difficult to be on a test like that. For those who don't know, GCSEs are your basic qualifications before progressing onto the final 2 years of school at Advanced Level and then degree, and a minimum of a C in English and Maths is required for most jobs.

The question revolved around Hannah's sweets.

Hannah has a bag contained n sweets containing orange sweets are a number of other colours. Hannah takes one orange sweet out. She then takes another sweet (unknown colour) out. The probability of getting 2 orange sweets in 1/3rd. Prove that n^2 - n - 90 = 0


Apparently this question is stumping accountants with degrees for over 2 hours. Would any such Dakkanaut be willing to solve this seemingly impossible puzzle. I gave it a shot earlier but having finished my own Alevel, and finished GCSE two years ago with an A in maths, I really didn't care enough to finish it.

N's value below

Spoiler:

I have calculated N, I hust can't be bother finishing it.

N = -9 or 10

n2 - n - 90 = 0

(-9)^2 - -9 -90 = 0 10^2 - 10 - 90 = 0
81 - -9 = 81+9 = 90 100 - 10 = 90

However, as we're dealing with physical things, it must be positive so 10.is the value of N

just in case anyone needs a starting point.

I can see why that question would prove difficult for people. It's a question that no one is ever likely to ask. Most people just buy a bag of sweets in order to consume those sweets not to create superfluous questions to be solved by higher math equations for no practical benefit. If I want to know which specific sweet I'm going to pull out of the bag next, I'll just reach in and pull one out and look at it. That will give me the answer much faster and easier than solving the equation. Especially since the equation doesn't have any practical meaning to the situation. If Hannah wants an orange sweet she can look in the bag and pull one out, if she doesn't she can look in the bag and grab one that isn't. Regardless of the what the probability of pulling out an orange sweet is, Hannah is not held captive by that probability, the sweet will either be orange or it won't and she can exert complete control over the outcome with ease.

If the sole purpose of learning higher math is to pass tests full of made up questions that nobody would ever feel the need to ask in real life, then there's no practical purpose in learning the math. If the vast majority of people in school only learn higher math to pass their tests and then as soon as students are done with the tests they'll start to forget it until after a few years they'll forget it completely or struggle mightily to solve the equations because they haven't needed that skill for years. It's the same thing with any subject. If students only learn specific historic dates, people and events to pass tests in school and then never need that information again, years later they will struggle to retain it. People like to laugh at those Man on the Street segments that shows do when they ask random people questions about subjects they learned in school as children and laugh at the people who can't come up with the answers. The audience laughing at the Man on the Street would struggle just as hard to get the right answers as the people intervied on camera because both groups of people are comprised of people who haven't had to remember information that they learned decades ago simply to pass a test in school.

Probability is a waste of time. A mathmatical construct used to make a supposed "educated" guess that is still just a guess and that doesn't exert any influence on the outcome itself. If you want to know what's going to happen next, just be patient, you'll find out. Your desired outcome will either happen or it won't, you have a 50/50 shot, trying to come up with needless overly complex equations to sort out a sliding scale of maybe just for the intellectual exercise is a waste of time.

https://books.google.com/books?id=8bvFIHE0u4kC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=probability+is+a+sliding+scale+of+maybe&source=bl&ots=KPtZjfPoYG&sig=UEKM6N7x69eyQIq06I30KPfpWjM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yJt1VcvPOoS_sAXBqICgAg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=probability%20is%20a%20sliding%20scale%20of%20maybe&f=false

Maths is not practical says the guy typing his response into an internet forum made possible only by incredibly complex mathematical operations layered on top of each other to produce operating systems and the internet. Oh dear.

What you posted about probability shows a deep misunderstanding of what probability is about too, but after your first statement that is not surprising.

When people say "Learning maths is not practical" they mean "I don't use maths much in my life", sometimes with the addendum "because I can't". Mathematics is part of every advance in science, every feat of engineering. We live in a world made possible by people doing complex mathematics day in day out.

If you can't take part in that, okay, I can't take part in conversations happening in Japanese either, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to deride all Japanese as worthless.

Learning Japanese is only worthwhile for people who need to be fluent in Japanese. The majority of the humans on Earth don't speak Japanese because they don't need to speak Japanese.

Point of fact, I didn't say math was impractical. I said: If the sole purpose of learning higher math is to pass tests full of made up questions that nobody would ever feel the need to ask in real life, then there's no practical purpose in learning the math
You've deliberately broken apart my conditional statement to create a strawman argument and ignore the the salient points of my post (as have others in this thread).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Probability is a waste of time.

This is a joke, right?

Why devote time and effort to make a prediction that is either going to be right or wrong? Spend as much time on the equation as you want and assign as much importance to it as you wish, it's still either going to happen or it won't. So no matter what equations you use, it's just a coin flip so why bother doing all the work to make a guess that has a 50% chance of being wrong?

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
So for those who haven't heard, today a GCSE maths question went viral after numerous students complained it was too difficult to be on a test like that. For those who don't know, GCSEs are your basic qualifications before progressing onto the final 2 years of school at Advanced Level and then degree, and a minimum of a C in English and Maths is required for most jobs.

The question revolved around Hannah's sweets.

Hannah has a bag contained n sweets containing orange sweets are a number of other colours. Hannah takes one orange sweet out. She then takes another sweet (unknown colour) out. The probability of getting 2 orange sweets in 1/3rd. Prove that n^2 - n - 90 = 0


Apparently this question is stumping accountants with degrees for over 2 hours. Would any such Dakkanaut be willing to solve this seemingly impossible puzzle. I gave it a shot earlier but having finished my own Alevel, and finished GCSE two years ago with an A in maths, I really didn't care enough to finish it.

N's value below

Spoiler:

I have calculated N, I hust can't be bother finishing it.

N = -9 or 10

n2 - n - 90 = 0

(-9)^2 - -9 -90 = 0 10^2 - 10 - 90 = 0
81 - -9 = 81+9 = 90 100 - 10 = 90

However, as we're dealing with physical things, it must be positive so 10.is the value of N

just in case anyone needs a starting point.

I can see why that question would prove difficult for people. It's a question that no one is ever likely to ask. Most people just buy a bag of sweets in order to consume those sweets not to create superfluous questions to be solved by higher math equations for no practical benefit. If I want to know which specific sweet I'm going to pull out of the bag next, I'll just reach in and pull one out and look at it. That will give me the answer much faster and easier than solving the equation. Especially since the equation doesn't have any practical meaning to the situation. If Hannah wants an orange sweet she can look in the bag and pull one out, if she doesn't she can look in the bag and grab one that isn't. Regardless of the what the probability of pulling out an orange sweet is, Hannah is not held captive by that probability, the sweet will either be orange or it won't and she can exert complete control over the outcome with ease.

If the sole purpose of learning higher math is to pass tests full of made up questions that nobody would ever feel the need to ask in real life, then there's no practical purpose in learning the math. If the vast majority of people in school only learn higher math to pass their tests and then as soon as students are done with the tests they'll start to forget it until after a few years they'll forget it completely or struggle mightily to solve the equations because they haven't needed that skill for years. It's the same thing with any subject. If students only learn specific historic dates, people and events to pass tests in school and then never need that information again, years later they will struggle to retain it. People like to laugh at those Man on the Street segments that shows do when they ask random people questions about subjects they learned in school as children and laugh at the people who can't come up with the answers. The audience laughing at the Man on the Street would struggle just as hard to get the right answers as the people intervied on camera because both groups of people are comprised of people who haven't had to remember information that they learned decades ago simply to pass a test in school.

Probability is a waste of time. A mathmatical construct used to make a supposed "educated" guess that is still just a guess and that doesn't exert any influence on the outcome itself. If you want to know what's going to happen next, just be patient, you'll find out. Your desired outcome will either happen or it won't, you have a 50/50 shot, trying to come up with needless overly complex equations to sort out a sliding scale of maybe just for the intellectual exercise is a waste of time.

https://books.google.com/books?id=8bvFIHE0u4kC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=probability+is+a+sliding+scale+of+maybe&source=bl&ots=KPtZjfPoYG&sig=UEKM6N7x69eyQIq06I30KPfpWjM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yJt1VcvPOoS_sAXBqICgAg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=probability%20is%20a%20sliding%20scale%20of%20maybe&f=false

Maths is not practical says the guy typing his response into an internet forum made possible only by incredibly complex mathematical operations layered on top of each other to produce operating systems and the internet. Oh dear.

What you posted about probability shows a deep misunderstanding of what probability is about too, but after your first statement that is not surprising.

When people say "Learning maths is not practical" they mean "I don't use maths much in my life", sometimes with the addendum "because I can't". Mathematics is part of every advance in science, every feat of engineering. We live in a world made possible by people doing complex mathematics day in day out.

If you can't take part in that, okay, I can't take part in conversations happening in Japanese either, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to deride all Japanese as worthless.

Learning Japanese is only worthwhile for people who need to be fluent in Japanese. The majority of the humans on Earth don't speak Japanese because they don't need to speak Japanese.

Point of fact, I didn't say math was impractical. I said: If the sole purpose of learning higher math is to pass tests full of made up questions that nobody would ever feel the need to ask in real life, then there's no practical purpose in learning the math
You've deliberately broken apart my conditional statement to create a strawman argument and ignore the the salient points of my post (as have others in this thread).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Probability is a waste of time.

This is a joke, right?

Why devote time and effort to make a prediction that is either going to be right or wrong? Spend as much time on the equation as you want and assign as much importance to it as you wish, it's still either going to happen or it won't. So no matter what equations you use, it's just a coin flip so why bother doing all the work to make a guess that has a 50% chance of being wrong?

feth, I never realised that's how statistics work. I'd better go and buy some lottery tickets, then; I mean, I'm just as likely to win as I am to lose, right?

 -Shrike- wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
So for those who haven't heard, today a GCSE maths question went viral after numerous students complained it was too difficult to be on a test like that. For those who don't know, GCSEs are your basic qualifications before progressing onto the final 2 years of school at Advanced Level and then degree, and a minimum of a C in English and Maths is required for most jobs.

The question revolved around Hannah's sweets.

Hannah has a bag contained n sweets containing orange sweets are a number of other colours. Hannah takes one orange sweet out. She then takes another sweet (unknown colour) out. The probability of getting 2 orange sweets in 1/3rd. Prove that n^2 - n - 90 = 0


Apparently this question is stumping accountants with degrees for over 2 hours. Would any such Dakkanaut be willing to solve this seemingly impossible puzzle. I gave it a shot earlier but having finished my own Alevel, and finished GCSE two years ago with an A in maths, I really didn't care enough to finish it.

N's value below

Spoiler:

I have calculated N, I hust can't be bother finishing it.

N = -9 or 10

n2 - n - 90 = 0

(-9)^2 - -9 -90 = 0 10^2 - 10 - 90 = 0
81 - -9 = 81+9 = 90 100 - 10 = 90

However, as we're dealing with physical things, it must be positive so 10.is the value of N

just in case anyone needs a starting point.

I can see why that question would prove difficult for people. It's a question that no one is ever likely to ask. Most people just buy a bag of sweets in order to consume those sweets not to create superfluous questions to be solved by higher math equations for no practical benefit. If I want to know which specific sweet I'm going to pull out of the bag next, I'll just reach in and pull one out and look at it. That will give me the answer much faster and easier than solving the equation. Especially since the equation doesn't have any practical meaning to the situation. If Hannah wants an orange sweet she can look in the bag and pull one out, if she doesn't she can look in the bag and grab one that isn't. Regardless of the what the probability of pulling out an orange sweet is, Hannah is not held captive by that probability, the sweet will either be orange or it won't and she can exert complete control over the outcome with ease.

If the sole purpose of learning higher math is to pass tests full of made up questions that nobody would ever feel the need to ask in real life, then there's no practical purpose in learning the math. If the vast majority of people in school only learn higher math to pass their tests and then as soon as students are done with the tests they'll start to forget it until after a few years they'll forget it completely or struggle mightily to solve the equations because they haven't needed that skill for years. It's the same thing with any subject. If students only learn specific historic dates, people and events to pass tests in school and then never need that information again, years later they will struggle to retain it. People like to laugh at those Man on the Street segments that shows do when they ask random people questions about subjects they learned in school as children and laugh at the people who can't come up with the answers. The audience laughing at the Man on the Street would struggle just as hard to get the right answers as the people intervied on camera because both groups of people are comprised of people who haven't had to remember information that they learned decades ago simply to pass a test in school.

Probability is a waste of time. A mathmatical construct used to make a supposed "educated" guess that is still just a guess and that doesn't exert any influence on the outcome itself. If you want to know what's going to happen next, just be patient, you'll find out. Your desired outcome will either happen or it won't, you have a 50/50 shot, trying to come up with needless overly complex equations to sort out a sliding scale of maybe just for the intellectual exercise is a waste of time.

https://books.google.com/books?id=8bvFIHE0u4kC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=probability+is+a+sliding+scale+of+maybe&source=bl&ots=KPtZjfPoYG&sig=UEKM6N7x69eyQIq06I30KPfpWjM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yJt1VcvPOoS_sAXBqICgAg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=probability%20is%20a%20sliding%20scale%20of%20maybe&f=false

Maths is not practical says the guy typing his response into an internet forum made possible only by incredibly complex mathematical operations layered on top of each other to produce operating systems and the internet. Oh dear.

What you posted about probability shows a deep misunderstanding of what probability is about too, but after your first statement that is not surprising.

When people say "Learning maths is not practical" they mean "I don't use maths much in my life", sometimes with the addendum "because I can't". Mathematics is part of every advance in science, every feat of engineering. We live in a world made possible by people doing complex mathematics day in day out.

If you can't take part in that, okay, I can't take part in conversations happening in Japanese either, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to deride all Japanese as worthless.

Learning Japanese is only worthwhile for people who need to be fluent in Japanese. The majority of the humans on Earth don't speak Japanese because they don't need to speak Japanese.

Point of fact, I didn't say math was impractical. I said: If the sole purpose of learning higher math is to pass tests full of made up questions that nobody would ever feel the need to ask in real life, then there's no practical purpose in learning the math
You've deliberately broken apart my conditional statement to create a strawman argument and ignore the the salient points of my post (as have others in this thread).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Probability is a waste of time.

This is a joke, right?

Why devote time and effort to make a prediction that is either going to be right or wrong? Spend as much time on the equation as you want and assign as much importance to it as you wish, it's still either going to happen or it won't. So no matter what equations you use, it's just a coin flip so why bother doing all the work to make a guess that has a 50% chance of being wrong?

feth, I never realised that's how statistics work. I'd better go and buy some lottery tickets, then; I mean, I'm just as likely to win as I am to lose, right?

Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

Prestor Jon wrote:
Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

Ok then, in order to prove how much you disagree with statistics, go jump in front of a speeding car on the motorway. Because, whatever the supposed likelihood of getting turned into road jelly, there's only two possible outcomes so believe what you want.

Unbelievable!

Prestor Jon wrote:

Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

Those are the two possible outcomes for a single ticket. However, both outcomes will not occur with the same frequency, therefore a well-informed decision maker will evaluate the expected utility of his purchase.

The basis of rational thought is the learning and application of event probabilities to the decision making process. Medical and professional decision making, economics, Bayesian statistics, AI, many engineering disciplines, biomedical research, weather prediction...all of these consider probabilistic events.

Your point of view is simply dildos. You shouldn't trust sources entitled Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and given that the author of that book basically acknowledges that he's trollin', I'm really hoping that you're doing the same.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Your point of view is simply dildos.

This right here is the best thing I've read all day.

This thread just lurched from annoying and in to full blown crazy. And the best bit is that the crazy was nestled away in the OP's first post, but none of us bothered to read that far the first time around. It took one diligent poster to read all the way through and get to bit of craziness about probability and respond, and now we're off to the races.

Prestor Jon wrote:


Why devote time and effort to make a prediction that is either going to be right or wrong? Spend as much time on the equation as you want and assign as much importance to it as you wish, it's still either going to happen or it won't. So no matter what equations you use, it's just a coin flip so why bother doing all the work to make a guess that has a 50% chance of being wrong?

feth, I never realised that's how statistics work. I'd better go and buy some lottery tickets, then; I mean, I'm just as likely to win as I am to lose, right?

Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

 sebster wrote:
This thread just lurched from annoying and in to full blown crazy. And the best bit is that the crazy was nestled away in the OP's first post, but none of us bothered to read that far the first time around. It took one diligent poster to read all the way through and get to bit of craziness about probability and respond, and now we're off to the races.

We both know there was a 100% probability of that.

Prestor Jon wrote:
Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

Did you seriously just apply Yoda to lottery tickets? "Win or Win not, there is no try"?
That's just straight up childlike. I mean, "probablity doesn't matter, either it happens or it doesn't" is something I was taught was wrong at the age of nine. That you still believe it is troubling.

Also, I'm enjoying the irony of insisting that understanding probability doesn't matter whilst posting on a wargaming forum. No probability involved in wargames, you just roll a dice and see what happens. You either kill a unit or you don't. No probability needed.



Side note: I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that some lotteries have lower level prizes? For matching five numbers but not the sixth, for example; so surely that means that there's actually more than two outcomes?

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:
This thread just lurched from annoying and in to full blown crazy. And the best bit is that the crazy was nestled away in the OP's first post, but none of us bothered to read that far the first time around. It took one diligent poster to read all the way through and get to bit of craziness about probability and respond, and now we're off to the races.

We both know there was a 100% probability of that.

Would calculating the probability of such a thing happening have convinced you that it was definitely going to happen? Yet it did happen so the equation would need to show that it was 100% certain to happen to be correct.

Frazzled cracks joke PJ says something serious. Frazzled confused. Can only be unconfused with chocolate.

Chocolate you are my master! Command me!

 Kilkrazy wrote:


We can also calculate how many different tickets are required to have a 100% chance of winning.

If there's only one winning ticket, then you literally need to buy all of them to have a 100% chance at winning. But you can weight the payoff against ticket cost and P(win) to get the expected utility of each ticket, and buy a number that puts you over the edge, so to speak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:
This thread just lurched from annoying and in to full blown crazy. And the best bit is that the crazy was nestled away in the OP's first post, but none of us bothered to read that far the first time around. It took one diligent poster to read all the way through and get to bit of craziness about probability and respond, and now we're off to the races.

We both know there was a 100% probability of that.

Would calculating the probability of such a thing happening have convinced you that it was definitely going to happen? Yet it did happen so the equation would need to show that it was 100% certain to happen to be correct.

Is the North Carolina public school system really this bad?

 Goliath wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

Did you seriously just apply Yoda to lottery tickets? "Win or Win not, there is no try"?
That's just straight up childlike. I mean, "probablity doesn't matter, either it happens or it doesn't" is something I was taught was wrong at the age of nine. That you still believe it is troubling.

Also, I'm enjoying the irony of insisting that understanding probability doesn't matter whilst posting on a wargaming forum. No probability involved in wargames, you just roll a dice and see what happens. You either kill a unit or you don't. No probability needed.



Side note: I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that some lotteries have lower level prizes? For matching five numbers but not the sixth, for example; so surely that means that there's actually more than two outcomes?

Example: a tac squad of IF SM with bolter drill will probably generate X hits and Y wounds against a mob of ork boyz. I won't know exactly how many hits and wounds the SM generate until I roll the dice. The probable number of hits and wounds that the tac squad will generate has zero impact on what numbers I roll with the dice. Just because the math says the IF will hit X orks and produce Y wounds doesn't mean they will. GW could change the rules in 40k to eliminate dice rolling but as long as the outcome is determined by the dice you have to roll them to find out what will happen. I can make the same attack multiple times in a game or a series of games and the tac squad may never deal precisely the number of hits and wounds that probability says they should. I can take the average hits and wounds they deal over the course of the game(s) and that average (another mathematical construct that may have never actually happened) could be different from the number of hits and wounds most probable to occur. There are wargames, like chess, that don't require dice rolls to determine outcomes but if you're going to have to roll to get an outcome then won't know what happens until after you roll. We've all had very unprobable and unlikely outcomes happen in games due to very good or very bad dice rolls. Even if an outcome is unlikely to happen you still have to roll to see if it happens. It's impossible to mathammer your way to being able to predict the outcome with certainty.

The lottery ticket will either win you money or it won't. Whether you win all the money or some of the money, the outcome are still either money or no money.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Frazzled cracks joke PJ says something serious. Frazzled confused. Can only be unconfused with chocolate.

Chocolate you are my master! Command me!

Not completely serious. Obviously there was a 100% chance of this happening because it did but could anyone have generated any equations to show that level of probability or even come close to that level of certainty? Determining the likelihood of this discussion happening had no bearing on it actually happening.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


We can also calculate how many different tickets are required to have a 100% chance of winning.

If there's only one winning ticket, then you literally need to buy all of them to have a 100% chance at winning. But you can weight the payoff against ticket cost and P(win) to get the expected utility of each ticket, and buy a number that puts you over the edge, so to speak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:
This thread just lurched from annoying and in to full blown crazy. And the best bit is that the crazy was nestled away in the OP's first post, but none of us bothered to read that far the first time around. It took one diligent poster to read all the way through and get to bit of craziness about probability and respond, and now we're off to the races.

We both know there was a 100% probability of that.

Would calculating the probability of such a thing happening have convinced you that it was definitely going to happen? Yet it did happen so the equation would need to show that it was 100% certain to happen to be correct.

Is the North Carolina public school system really this bad?

What's the probability that I actually attened NC public schools? I'll let you know if the predictive math is right or wrong.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Goliath wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

Did you seriously just apply Yoda to lottery tickets? "Win or Win not, there is no try"?
That's just straight up childlike. I mean, "probablity doesn't matter, either it happens or it doesn't" is something I was taught was wrong at the age of nine. That you still believe it is troubling.

Also, I'm enjoying the irony of insisting that understanding probability doesn't matter whilst posting on a wargaming forum. No probability involved in wargames, you just roll a dice and see what happens. You either kill a unit or you don't. No probability needed.



Side note: I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that some lotteries have lower level prizes? For matching five numbers but not the sixth, for example; so surely that means that there's actually more than two outcomes?

Example: a tac squad of IF SM with bolter drill will probably generate X hits and Y wounds against a mob of ork boyz. I won't know exactly how many hits and wounds the SM generate until I roll the dice. The probable number of hits and wounds that the tac squad will generate has zero impact on what numbers I roll with the dice. Just because the math says the IF will hit X orks and produce Y wounds doesn't mean they will. GW could change the rules in 40k to eliminate dice rolling but as long as the outcome is determined by the dice you have to roll them to find out what will happen. I can make the same attack multiple times in a game or a series of games and the tac squad may never deal precisely the number of hits and wounds that probability says they should. I can take the average hits and wounds they deal over the course of the game(s) and that average (another mathematical construct that may have never actually happened) could be different from the number of hits and wounds most probable to occur. There are wargames, like chess, that don't require dice rolls to determine outcomes but if you're going to have to roll to get an outcome then won't know what happens until after you roll. We've all had very unprobable and unlikely outcomes happen in games due to very good or very bad dice rolls.

I think we have an insight here into the minds of 40K designers.

It is not "Terribly late" to take algebra in college, nor does it preclude you from taking a math heavy degree. I don't know why you went to college but I knew what degree program I wanted to take before I decided to shell out 30k a year for a degree. (granted I changed my degree after the military because the idea of teaching a bunch of kids made me want to commit murder) The absolute worst part about US Colleges is the amount of nonsensical classes that are required before you can start taking courses aimed at your degree. now before you have a conniption fit, I also feel that if you are undecided then you should feel free to take whatever random courses your heart desires, but for those who are driven and know what they want they are penalized and forced to take useless courses.

No I'm not. I'm simply pointing out that your field does use math, it just uses math that has been neatly packaged into a finished product by the engineers. Which is fine, as long as you never have to work outside of the instruction manuals written by those engineers. But you're going to be limited in your ability to go beyond following the directions because you don't know the math.

Actually your 100% wrong and your changing the question to better reflect your opinion. The analyst NEVER has to d the kind of math that went into building the equipment because if he did then combat would be a lot more boring then it already is. "Hold on a second while I figure out this coefficient." The engineers usually build us a useless lump of metal which weighs so much that its bordering on the useless. Then they forget important details such as "Its hot in Afghanistan" and we have to find field expedient measures to keep the lump of metal from melting. IF that gear DOES break down then it wouldn't matter how many math degrees I had because I wouldn't be able to prosecute my mission with formulas. As far as limited in my ability its actually the opposite. On a regular basis we had engineers and technicians interviewing our guys to come up with solutions to the myriad of problems that Math didn't foresee.

Antenna Length. To construct expedient, efficient antennas, the wavelength of the frequency being used must be known. The length of the antenna needed can be determined by using the proper formula below:
◾ To figure a quarter-wavelength antenna in feet, divide 234 (constant) by the operating frequency MHz.
◾ To figure a half-wavelength antenna in feet, divide 468 (constant) by the operating frequency in MHz.
◾ To figure a full-wavelength antenna in feet, divide 936 (constant) by the operating frequency in MHz.

And guess where those rough guidelines came from: someone who does know the math behind antenna design did a whole bunch of calculus. If you need to design an antenna for a situation where the rough guideline doesn't apply you're hopelessly screwed. On the other hand I could dust off my old textbook and do the math (or at least have a chance of doing it, I never learned more than the basics).

 Elemental wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Goliath wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Go ahead and buy the lottery ticket. Either the ticket will win or it won't. Those are the only two possible outcomes. Whatever mathematical equation you choose to use to arrive at a supposed likelihood of winning doesn't create another outcome besides winning and not winning so believe what you want.

Did you seriously just apply Yoda to lottery tickets? "Win or Win not, there is no try"?
That's just straight up childlike. I mean, "probablity doesn't matter, either it happens or it doesn't" is something I was taught was wrong at the age of nine. That you still believe it is troubling.

Also, I'm enjoying the irony of insisting that understanding probability doesn't matter whilst posting on a wargaming forum. No probability involved in wargames, you just roll a dice and see what happens. You either kill a unit or you don't. No probability needed.



Side note: I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that some lotteries have lower level prizes? For matching five numbers but not the sixth, for example; so surely that means that there's actually more than two outcomes?

Example: a tac squad of IF SM with bolter drill will probably generate X hits and Y wounds against a mob of ork boyz. I won't know exactly how many hits and wounds the SM generate until I roll the dice. The probable number of hits and wounds that the tac squad will generate has zero impact on what numbers I roll with the dice. Just because the math says the IF will hit X orks and produce Y wounds doesn't mean they will. GW could change the rules in 40k to eliminate dice rolling but as long as the outcome is determined by the dice you have to roll them to find out what will happen. I can make the same attack multiple times in a game or a series of games and the tac squad may never deal precisely the number of hits and wounds that probability says they should. I can take the average hits and wounds they deal over the course of the game(s) and that average (another mathematical construct that may have never actually happened) could be different from the number of hits and wounds most probable to occur. There are wargames, like chess, that don't require dice rolls to determine outcomes but if you're going to have to roll to get an outcome then won't know what happens until after you roll. We've all had very unprobable and unlikely outcomes happen in games due to very good or very bad dice rolls.

I think we have an insight here into the minds of 40K designers.

He makes some skewed kind of sense. The calculated probability of failing saves on Terminators would say that if you make 6 rolls you'll fail only 1 of them. But that doesn't stop them from getting wiped off the board from 5 Tactical Marines in a practical situation. I believe what he's saying is the theoretical probability has no bearing on the practical outcome, which is true in a sense.

Still, talking in a mathhammer context, or gambling for example, probably is your best friend.

 Peregrine wrote:
The key part you're missing is that there are six orange sweets.

Grumble grumble grumble...wish I had read that first....

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


We can also calculate how many different tickets are required to have a 100% chance of winning.

If there's only one winning ticket, then you literally need to buy all of them to have a 100% chance at winning. But you can weight the payoff against ticket cost and P(win) to get the expected utility of each ticket, and buy a number that puts you over the edge, so to speak.


... ..

You only need to buy enough tickets to hold one of each possible number combination. Then you are guaranteed to win, as the balls must fall into one of the possible combinations and you already hold it.

There is a small danger that the winning combination is also on a ticket held by another party, making you share the prize. However this happens fairly infrequently. (It is possible to calculate the probability for different conditions.)

Another benefit of holding all the other tickets is that you win second, third and fourth prizes too, etc.

In the historical case, the syndicate failed to get all their ticket selections run through the machine before closing time, but they were lucky anyway and won the jackpot.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


We can also calculate how many different tickets are required to have a 100% chance of winning.

If there's only one winning ticket, then you literally need to buy all of them to have a 100% chance at winning. But you can weight the payoff against ticket cost and P(win) to get the expected utility of each ticket, and buy a number that puts you over the edge, so to speak.


... ..

You only need to buy enough tickets to hold one of each possible number combination. Then you are guaranteed to win, as the balls must fall into one of the possible combinations and you already hold it.

There is a small danger that the winning combination is also on a ticket held by another party, making you share the prize. However this happens fairly infrequently. (It is possible to calculate the probability for different conditions.)

Another benefit of holding all the other tickets is that you win second, third and fourth prizes too, etc.

In the historical case, the syndicate failed to get all their ticket selections run through the machine before closing time, but they were lucky anyway and won the jackpot.

Got it - I'm thinking of it more as a raffle. Shows how much I play the lottery.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


We can also calculate how many different tickets are required to have a 100% chance of winning.

If there's only one winning ticket, then you literally need to buy all of them to have a 100% chance at winning. But you can weight the payoff against ticket cost and P(win) to get the expected utility of each ticket, and buy a number that puts you over the edge, so to speak.


... ..

You only need to buy enough tickets to hold one of each possible number combination. Then you are guaranteed to win, as the balls must fall into one of the possible combinations and you already hold it.

There is a small danger that the winning combination is also on a ticket held by another party, making you share the prize. However this happens fairly infrequently. (It is possible to calculate the probability for different conditions.)

Another benefit of holding all the other tickets is that you win second, third and fourth prizes too, etc.

In the historical case, the syndicate failed to get all their ticket selections run through the machine before closing time, but they were lucky anyway and won the jackpot.

Well assuming that each country has a different number of numbers to choose (ie, 1-45, 1-50), take an average of 50 and run that against the possible combinations and get approximately 1.8 I -don't-even-know-how-to-pronounce-this-illion possible combinations.

A less surefire way but cheaper, would be to take those numners most likely to come up based on, if I remember this correctly, standard deviation? Like I said in the OP, haven't done Maths in a few years so forgot a lot of stuff but IIRC, standard deviation would suggest those numbers in the centre are more likely to come up than those on the edges. So for example, numbers 22-28 would be more likely than 1 and 50.

Prestor Jon wrote:
We've all had very unprobable and unlikely outcomes happen in games due to very good or very bad dice rolls.

What's your point? Anyone who understands probability (a group which apparently does not include you) knows that the typical "mathhammer" approach of calculating average outcomes is just a quick approximation, and the full analysis is a bell curve of outcomes. Probability already accounts for those unlikely outcomes, and can tell you exactly how unlikely they are.

It's impossible to mathammer your way to being able to predict the outcome with certainty.

No, and that's not the point. Probability tells you that you have an X% chance of killing at least Y orks with your tactical squad, and you can use that information to decide if it's worth shooting at those orks or if you should find something better to do with the tactical squad. If you don't understand probability and/or think that it's a useless concept then you will consistently make bad decisions and lose games.

The lottery ticket will either win you money or it won't. Whether you win all the money or some of the money, the outcome are still either money or no money.

And probability tells you how likely you are to win money, which tells you whether or not you should buy a ticket.

(Hint: if you understand probability you know that the answer is almost always "no".)


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 Deadshot wrote:
A less surefire way but cheaper, would be to take those numners most likely to come up based on, if I remember this correctly, standard deviation? Like I said in the OP, haven't done Maths in a few years so forgot a lot of stuff but IIRC, standard deviation would suggest those numbers in the centre are more likely to come up than those on the edges. So for example, numbers 22-28 would be more likely than 1 and 50.

This is not true. For a simple "pick a random number" draw each number has exactly the same chance of appearing. Bell curves and standard deviation only apply to certain types of situations (though they are very common).


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 Ghazkuul wrote:
It is not "Terribly late" to take algebra in college, nor does it preclude you from taking a math heavy degree.

Yes it is. I can tell from this statement that you haven't done any kind of math-heavy degree, and you're simply wrong about this. If you aren't taking your first calculus class in your first semester of college then you will not finish a math-heavy degree in four years. The classes you have to take are scheduled on the assumption that you have that level of math, and you will not be allowed to take them if you don't meet the prerequisites (even if they gave you a special exception you'd have no hope of passing). If you're taking basic algebra in college then you're going to have to spend at least a year or two taking pointless classes before you can start your degree.

Wonderful, someone a long time ago came up with a formula for constructing antennas, but guess what? Nobody needs to do that anymore because the formula is already in place.

Sigh. And that's the point! Your field involves math, your job does not. That's fine if you can find one of those low-math jobs in your field and keep it for a whole career, but it does limit the work you can do. For example, if you want to turn that practical experience into a job designing equipment for people like you to use you're going to need a lot more math.

In the end my point still stands and I will go even further. Anything beyond Basic Statistics and Algebra is a WASTE for over 95% of the world. Engineers, scientists and the like need math but your average person does not because we never use it. You can continue to preach about how your opinion is so much more valid because "balance" but at the end of the day you know I am right.

And, again, even if you aren't going to use math in your life you still have to take it because high school (where you take those math classes) is supposed to prepare you to make your career choice. If you don't take the higher-level math classes your career options are extremely limited. So we err on the side of keeping a student's options open and make them take enough math that they can choose any career path when they graduate, not just the low-math ones. We want to avoid the situation where a student graduates from high school and wants to become an engineer, but can't do it because of a choice they made when they were 12 years old.

I will argue that there is one other area of maths everyone needs: calculating interest. Both flat interest and accumulative interest. Ie, ones that just add on from the original figure (100+ 20% = 120 +20% =140) and ones that add on the new figure each increase (100+20%= 120, 120 + 20% = 144).

I do realise I've explained those badly but interest is the thing you'll probably need most, for stuff like loan repayments and mortages.

Taxes is the other thing that I think should be taught in maths class. Its just working with percentages so its like 8 year old stuff, but important information to be used in life. Here's even an example question in British example

" Hannah recently paid her taxes but is unsure she paid the correct amount. She knows that the first £10,000 are tax free, and that she must then pay 13% of the remainder as tax, as well as another 10% for National Insurance. Calculate how much net salary she will receive per year, if her taxes are paid annually and her gross monthly pay is £2000. "

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:
This thread just lurched from annoying and in to full blown crazy. And the best bit is that the crazy was nestled away in the OP's first post, but none of us bothered to read that far the first time around. It took one diligent poster to read all the way through and get to bit of craziness about probability and respond, and now we're off to the races.

We both know there was a 100% probability of that.

Dakka - the probability of threads changing from annoying to crazy is 100%.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Example: a tac squad of IF SM with bolter drill will probably generate X hits and Y wounds against a mob of ork boyz. I won't know exactly how many hits and wounds the SM generate until I roll the dice.

Sure, but different results have different probabilities, and it's really basic thing to choose a course of action where the probability is most in your favour. You know this, everyone knows this, it's a basic part of human decision making.

When you drive to work tomorrow you might die in a car crash. This is true if you drive sensibly, or if you get drive to work while slamming a bottle of whisky and driving down the wrong side of the road. But, of course, the likelihood of dying in a car crash is much higher in the second case, and so we don’t do that.

That’s how probability works – you figure out which course of action is most likely to lead to a good result, and you do that. This can mean actually spending time to work through the numbers, or it can mean learning through experience which method tends to work most often. But either way, it’s something we all do every single day, and your effort in this thread to deny it is, well, a very strange thing indeed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deadshot wrote:
I will argue that there is one other area of maths everyone needs: calculating interest. Both flat interest and accumulative interest. Ie, ones that just add on from the original figure (100+ 20% = 120 +20% =140) and ones that add on the new figure each increase (100+20%= 120, 120 + 20% = 144).

I do realise I've explained those badly but interest is the thing you'll probably need most, for stuff like loan repayments and mortages.

Taxes is the other thing that I think should be taught in maths class. Its just working with percentages so its like 8 year old stuff, but important information to be used in life. Here's even an example question in British example.

I’m not sure this kind of thing belongs in a math class, but I certainly agree that it should be taught. Perhaps a Finance class, that just goes through the basics like tax, interest and budgeting. It would rely on stuff already learned in maths class, but be its own thing.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Your point of view is simply dildos. You shouldn't trust sources entitled Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and given that the author of that book basically acknowledges that he's trollin', I'm really hoping that you're doing the same.

That source (which he has almost quoted verbatim) has a promotional quote on the cover, you know the kind where someone has said something glowing about the book. It's from "The Onion AV Club". The book is clearly a deliberate joke, the only question is who is the but of it? Prestor for taking it seriously, or us for taking him seriously?

The other argument that I would use is that even if 95% of the population does not use advanced maths, that number should be far lower.

We NEED more engineers and scientists. These are the people who are solving the big problems to allow us to continue with our civilization. With the challenges facing us as we move towards a planet of ever increasing population and fixed resources, we need as many innovators and engineers and scientists as possible. They are among the most useful people on the planet.

I am focused in my job in helping kids get to the point where they can contribute positively to this struggle. Every kid I manage to convince to continue a technical education is a big deal for me.

The point of teaching a range of subjects is to give everyone a rounded education that potentially opening up many opportunities. It's also about skills and an appreciation of history and society, as much as raw facts.

You don't need to know about Henry VIII's six wives, or most other things in history, in order to work in most jobs on a day to day basis. Following the arguments in this thread it should be scrapped. Things like higher maths and science or most subjects should be scrapped unless the child will need them for a specific profession. Presumably this will be chosen for them aged about 12 before you start teaching unnecessary things.

And the problem with that attitude is we don't know what professions or fields people will be working in in 10 years. In that way, subjects like mathematics that teach problem solving and logical thinking and abstract reasoning are in many ways much more useful than content orientated subjects. Though actually I consider all aspects of education pretty useful, despite my science bias.