Probability, Statistics and Udacity
While going through college I worked as a security guard. This was almost perfect for me as a college student because when I was not walking my rounds I was expected to stay at my desk where I could study. The work was easy and with only a few exceptions very low stress. During the summer, I had very little to study and boredom often became an issue.
Like most of my engineering class, I often played Risk when we would get together for an evening. I don’t need to go into the details but if you could roll a six every time, you would be unbeatable. One evening while at my post I found I still had several dice with me. This was a perfect time to practice my dice throwing techniques.
Most dice today are made of a high impact plastic. This is intentionally done to insure lots of bounce and to mitigate attempts of skill in trying to throw for specific numbers. After a few hundred tosses and some study I realized that any efforts I made to throw the die for a specific number would be seen for exactly the effort it was.
In that case, how about telekinesis? Actually influencing the outcome of a roll by concentrating on a specific number. The probability of rolling any number on a die is one in six. Statistically speaking I should see about 17 sixes in one hundred rolls.
For the next two months, I spent hours rolling the die while concentrating on a number. I always did this in sets of one hundred (as I write this it occurs to me that if I had used 120 rolls, I would have had an exact number). To insure no bias in the die, I would change the number I was concentrating on each time. For each set I would write down the number I was concentrating on and the results of each roll. After each set, I would tally up the number of rolls that matched the number I was concentrating on.
At the time statistically significant had no meaning for me so I was always impressed when I rolled my number more than 18 times in a set. Not surprisingly this was fairly often. I was convinced that I was telekinetically gifted. I just needed more time to perfect my skills. Fortunately summer ended and I had to resume my studies before I left to earn a living in Las Vegas.
Years later, I have a much stronger understanding of statistics and probability. I understand the importance of statistically significant. Fortunately I discarded all those sheets of data long ago but the idea still intrigues me. What would be statistically significant? How do I know if I have talent? How many times do I have to roll and record to know if I can influence the outcome of the roll.
I bring all this up because Udacity is now offering Intro to Statistics – Making Decisions Based on Data. I tried my best to just to stick to one course for this period but between Logic & Discrete Mathematics and Intro to Statistics, I could not bring myself to select just one course. Once again I’m signed up for two courses. If I do well, I’ve promised myself a vacation in Las Vegas. There’s always the chance that I have undiscovered talent.
Update Jan 28: I took the Udacity Statistics course and really enjoyed it, Thank you Udacity. I’ve even started using what I learned in the course, What are the Odds. Unfortunately they canceled Logic & Discrete Mathematics, no Las Vegas for me. At least not this year.
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There is a great coverage of nearly this exact topic (ESP) in the classic “Probability Theory” by E.T. Jaynes (you can find the book online as it has been around for a while) in chapter 5. I highly recommend you looking into it. Here is a blog post on that chapter, I have not read it myself: http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/12/e-t-jaynes-explains-why-people-aren%E2%80%99t-convinced-by-climate-change-evidence/
It considers not only hypothesis testing to determine ‘significance’ but also the likelihood of alternative explanations in order to determine if the evidence is enough to convince him of the existence of ESP.
A really fascinating read.