Question for Big Number Math Guys
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The odds for dropping a trillion coins and having them all drop on their edge is beyond virtually impossible. At the rate of dropping one trillion coins of one second per each drop, which obviously isn't feasible, it would take over 30,000 years to complete the task.
It's all a matter of scale.
As in, it might turn out to take 10 the 50th times as long as from the Big Bang until now to accomplish when dropping the coins a million times a second, or something... But that IS an answer, however absurd it might be.
I guess what makes the question fascinating to me is how something so "normal daily life-y" as flipping a coin---a little decider ritual that everyone knows and can identify with---can expand into a concept that dwarfs the Universe in size but is not infinite. The answer is precise and definite.
It would actually get more interesting if one actually tried to calculate this. How high are the coins bring dropped from? Onto what surface and it's it perfectly flat ? In a vacuum or are there any air currents? Are the coins allowed to bump into each other, even stack? What position are they in when being dropped, vertical, horizontal or random? And since you're talking a trillion times, the coins would experience extensive wear. How would that affect the outcome? So this becomes far more than a relatively simple statistics math problem but rather,a very complicated calculus or Suffern equation problem.
And I thought I was nuts.
What you're talking about would take a team of people years to accomplish using supercomputers. Not to mention endless testing to arrive at the "plug in" values to even start cranking on the problem itself.
See how it works, board? Craziness is transmissible...
after the first toss, the weight of a trillion coins hitting the earth at the exact same time would knock us out of orbit and we would burn/freeze to death.
Just so you guys don't think I'm TOO crazy...
My fascination is with a situation that looks like a "case of infinity" (for lack of a better term), but actually ISN'T.
In fact, it's just the merest gnat.
Like so:
If a trillion little coin toss boxes were set up (forget the wear and tear worries, this is an abstract problem), and coins were flip-dropped simultaneously into all of them in unison, repeatedly, eventually---though it might take a quadrillion years---every last one of them will land on its edge in the same flip.
And eventually---though it might take a trillion quadrillion septillion octillion dectillion years---they will all land on their edge a trillion times in a row.
But... a quadrillion septillion occurances of THAT ^^^^ time span will "fit into" INFINITY, well... an infinite number of times.
My fascination is with a situation that looks like a "case of infinity" (for lack of a better term), but actually ISN'T.
In fact, it's just the merest gnat.
Like so:
If a trillion little coin toss boxes were set up (forget the wear and tear worries, this is an abstract problem), and coins were flip-dropped simultaneously into all of them in unison, repeatedly, eventually---though it might take a quadrillion years---every last one of them will land on its edge in the same flip.
And eventually---though it might take a trillion quadrillion septillion octillion dectillion years---they will all land on their edge a trillion times in a row.
But... a quadrillion septillion occurances of THAT ^^^^ time span will "fit into" INFINITY, well... an infinite number of times.
That really didn't help to lower the crazy suspicion...it only reinforces my cat hypothesis.
Until all the hair is gone, you mean?
An interesting video that came to my phone that squeaks into the realms of infinity and the possibility of being disassembled and put back together again (or information retrieved). She mentions information that could be lost via black hole, but my question would be that wouldn't information be preserved through entanglement. -Miller Lite infused brain drifting through the block universe...
The “afterlife” according to Einstein’s special relativity | Sabine Hossenfelder
Probability of a trillion coins tossed all landing on edge simultaneously (Those trillion being the only coins tossed) is effectively zero. Now, how many coins would need to be tossed to have a trillion land on edge simultaneously would be 6000 trillion or 6000000000000000. How many tosses to have this happen a trillion times in a row would be 6000000000000000 raised to the 1000000000000th (trillionth) power. My tablet won't calculate a number that large. LOTS of zeros.
I don't think this problem can be calculated or, at least, not as currently stated.
It has been decades since I studied finite mathematics so please bear with me.
The problems with calculation lie with the term "consecutive" and the fact that there are, at a minimum, 2 different outcome possibilities of the toss (1 possibly is landing on edge and 1 is landing on either side).
In calculating consecutive possibilities, it makes a difference which outcome possibility you put first in the equation as the possibility of 1 outcome of the undesired possibility (landing on side) is much likelier than 10, 100, 1000, or any number of consecutive outcomes of the desired possibility (landing on edge).
This will hold true even if the different outcome possibilities or equal in likelihood, such as a simple heads v tails scenario. This second scenario is difficult enough to calculate but the first scenario above really fouls up the calculation.
Restate the problem as simply heads v tails (50/50) with the desired consecutive outcomes starting on the nth toss and then a realistic equation to determine the answer might be possible.
It has been decades since I studied finite mathematics so please bear with me.
The problems with calculation lie with the term "consecutive" and the fact that there are, at a minimum, 2 different outcome possibilities of the toss (1 possibly is landing on edge and 1 is landing on either side).
In calculating consecutive possibilities, it makes a difference which outcome possibility you put first in the equation as the possibility of 1 outcome of the undesired possibility (landing on side) is much likelier than 10, 100, 1000, or any number of consecutive outcomes of the desired possibility (landing on edge).
This will hold true even if the different outcome possibilities or equal in likelihood, such as a simple heads v tails scenario. This second scenario is difficult enough to calculate but the first scenario above really fouls up the calculation.
Restate the problem as simply heads v tails (50/50) with the desired consecutive outcomes starting on the nth toss and then a realistic equation to determine the answer might be possible.
This is the hallucination Lily allows George to have when he's been cooperative.
I'd prefer not to see the version he gets when he's been difficult.
Not going to answer just puffing on my pipe waiting on someone else to answer .