NPR has a great audio segment on the randomness of the coin toss. They also interview statistician Persi Diaconis who asked Harvard University engineers to build him a mechanical coin flipper (seen below) that can always make the perfect coin flip. It appears that the randomness in a coin toss is introduced by sloppy humans.

They also bring up the issue of American Football games that are started with a coin flip. Listen to the segment in Real or Windows Media formats.

Related posts:

1. Introduction to Randomness and Random Numbers
2. Why People Probably Don’t Understand Probability
3. Rizzo’s Random Thoughts
4. Footballer Wants To Change Name To Show His Love of WoW
5. City of Heroes: Issue 8 on Test Server

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