Heads or tails: the mathematical secret that changes everything
Pasta or rice? Cinema or restaurant? Sea or mountains? You too have toosed a coin and left some decisions in the hands of chance. However, Frantisek Bartos, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam, has discovered a significant bias.
The initial orientation of the coin, often overlooked, strongly influences the final result. The coin has a 51% chance of landing in the same position as the one in which it was initially in. This means that if the coin shows heads at the start, it is statistically better to choose tails.
Scientific experiments to unmask chance
This hypothesis has been around for a very long time. In 2007, a team of a mathematician and physicists demonstrated that the person who tosses the coin introduces, even involuntarily, a movement that orientates the coin.
In 2009, an experiment of 40,000 coin flips confirmed this hypothesis with a 51% probability that the coin would land on the same side. The same experiment conducted recently on 350,757 coin flips by researchers at the University of Amsterdam confirmed this result with a probability of 50.8%.
While this difference of less than 1% may seem insignificant, it ultimately shows that tossing a coin is not as fair as one might think. So, the next time you leave a decision up to chance, keep in mind that carefully observing the coin could well give you a slight advantage.
(MH with EdMar/Source: Ouest France/ Illustration: Samar Ahmad-Unsplash)