The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1913-01-01
LAWS Of LUCK
NEARLY EQUAL
Common Chances of Heads
Or Tails
IN THE TOSSING OF COINS
Average Out About Same,
Done Fairly. Under Or
binary Circumstances.
FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OBTAIN

Everybody knows that when a
coin is spun into the air it is pure
chance" whether it falls head or
tail upward; and every year, apart
from gambling, thousands of i'm
portant sporting decisions, at foot
ball matches and the like, are set
tied by the simple test. Yet math-
ematicians have pointed out that
our ideas of chance" in toss
ing are really quite wrong, If we
define chance as the unexpected.
We know, or think we know, that
if a penny were tossed million
times, head would have appeared,
when the total results were added
up. five hundred thousand times
and tail five hundred thousand
times. A few odd figures over on
one side or the other would not
prove the prophecy wrong. The
million losses would be half one
way and half the other, as nearly
as may be, and we should be salts
fled with the result of the expert
ment and say that it proved, what
we already believed, that the
chances we're equal"
This is what the man in the
street calls chance. But suppose
out of the million losses we found,
to our surprise, that an enormous
majority had turned up, say, tail;
what should we call the result
then? Naturally, we should not
call it law. Surely we should i'm
mediately cry, What an extraor-
binary chance!" thus showing that
what we had believed in before the
test was something quite different,
something not genuinely chance at
all.
II a group of people are betting
on the results of tossing a coin and
the coin has come down, say, five
times running head upward, you
will find that nearly everybody at
once begins to put his money on
tail. No one believes that the run
can continue much longer, thus tes'
tifying to his utter disbelief in
chance as such.
Yet chance caused that run OF
heads and chance may continue 1t
The real reason why the gamblers
do not expect the run to continue
is because experience has taught
them that some law, as sure as the
rising of the sun, has in the pas
prevented a tossed coin from eter
nally turning up on the same side
and that the oftener ii turns up OF
the one side, the larger becomes thu
probability that it will turn up oil
the other.
Chance. in the eyes of the scien
fist, is really knowledge, 'th'
knowledge of the average results o
many events used to replace ignor
anoe of the result of each individ
ual event" Prof. Karl Pearson
spent long time actually tryinl
the tossing of a coin and noting tn
results scientifically. One summe
he passed the greater part OF hi
holiday in making $4,000 careful
losses of a shilling, doubtlessl
greatly to the amazement of hi
neighbors.
A pupil of his supplemented tn
shilling record by $500 losses OF
penny and the drawing of 800
tickets from a bag, while anothe
gentleman sent to Prof. Pearso
the details OF nearly $4,000 draw
ings of colored and numbere
counters. The result of tabulatin
this mass of figures was. accordin
to the professor. "in strikingly clos
agreement with theory" that Il
with the theory that chance is eth
knowledge OF the average results
of many events"
In other words. head and Ia
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