English

How does the Monte Carlo method work?

Physics Education 2020-01-16 v2

Abstract

The paper describes the practical work for students visually clarifying the mechanism of the Monte Carlo method applying to approximating the value of Pi. Considering a traditional quadrant (circular sector) inscribed in a square, here we demonstrate the original algorithm for generating random points on the paper: you should arbitrarily tear up a paper blank to small pieces (the first experiment). By the similar way the second experiment (with a preliminary staining procedure by bright colors) can be used to prove the quadratic dependence of the area of a circle on its radius. Manipulations with tearing up a paper as a random sampling algorithm can be applied for solving other teaching problems in physics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1909.13212,
  title  = {How does the Monte Carlo method work?},
  author = {Oleg Yavoruk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.13212},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

17 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, 2 appendixes

R2 v1 2026-06-23T11:29:16.487Z