Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T09:40:04.349Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Should we play on your lawn or mine?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2016

J. N. S. Matthews*
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics & Statistics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU e-mail: john.matthews@ncl.ac.uk

Extract

Two friends, David and Hamish, were discussing on the telephone whether they should play a forthcoming croquet match at David's club or at Hamish's. Hamish said that he would toss a coin and David could call. David pointed out that this required a substantial degree of mutual trust, so Hamish suggested how they might use the published results of the following night's National Lottery draw. Hamish's proposal was, in fact, unfair and this article shows why and proposes a satisfactory alternative. There is no suggestion that the alternative proposed is a sensible way to solve David and Hamish's problem, but it does take us on a route that reinforces some important lessons. In particular it illustrates some of the advantages and disadvantages of the use of simulation, a technique widely used in more difficult problems. It also emphasises once more the importance in probability of not taking claims at face value.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.R Core Team, The R project for statistical computing, accessed October 2015 at http://www.R-project.org/Google Scholar
2.Hankin, R. K. S., hypergeo: the Gauss hypergeometric function (version 1.2–11) (2015), available at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/hypergeo/index.htmlGoogle Scholar