Related papers: Simulating a die roll by flipping two coins
We study a problem related to coin flipping, coding theory, and noise sensitivity. Consider a source of truly random bits $x \in \bits^n$, and $k$ parties, who have noisy versions of the source bits $y^i \in \bits^n$, where for all $i$ and…
We consider a card guessing game with complete feedback. A ordered deck of n cards labeled 1 up to n is riffle-shuffled exactly one time. Then, the goal of the game is to maximize the number of correct guesses of the cards, where one after…
We show that the existence of a coin-flipping protocol safe against \emph{any} non-trivial constant bias (\eg $.499$) implies the existence of one-way functions. This improves upon a recent result of Haitner and Omri [FOCS '11], who proved…
We show that the probability that two permutations of $n$ letters have the same number of cycles is \[\sim \frac{1}{2\sqrt{\pi\log{n}}}.\]
We harness both human ingenuity and the power of symbolic computation to study the number of coin tosses until reaching $n$ Heads or $m$ Tails. We also talk about the closely related problem of reaching $n$ Heads and $m$ Tails. This paper…
How to turn the flip of a coin into a random variable whose expected value equals a scattering amplitude? We answer this question by constructing a numerical algorithm to evaluate curve integrals - a novel formulation of scattering…
Coin-flipping is a fundamental task in two-party cryptography where two remote mistrustful parties wish to generate a shared uniformly random bit. While quantum protocols promising near-perfect security exist for weak coin-flipping -- when…
In the paper it is proven that the two-players turn-based stochastic game "Risk or Safety" has a unique solution. Both players need to play the same strategy if they want to maximize their winning chances. An analytical method based on the…
The act of a person juggling can be viewed as a Markov process if we assume that the juggler throws to random heights. I make this association for the simplest reasonable model of random juggling and compute the steady state probabilities…
We propose, experimentally realize and study possible applications of a new type of logic element: random flip-flop. By definition it operates similarly to a conventional flip-flop except that it functions with probability of 1/2 otherwise…
We construct families of two-dimensional Sinai billiards whose transfer operators have Ruelle resonances arbitrarily close to 1. Our method involves taking a large enough cover of an initial billiard table, and relating the transfer…
We analyze what happens to the average duration of a game of Chutes and Ladders as the probability of rolling $\delta \in \{ 1,2,3,4,5,6\}$ approaches 100%. We utilize Markov models, and Monte Carlo simulations in Python. We also introduce…
We study the dynamics of a bouncing coin whose motion is restricted to the two-dimensional plane. Such coin model is equivalent to the system of two equal masses connected by a rigid rod, making elastic collisions with a flat boundary. We…
A gambler with an initial fortune $x$ starts by betting a dollar, then doubles the bet after every win and halves the bet after every loss. Let $p\in (0,1)$ be the probability of winning for each round. We show that the gambler survives…
We call `bits' a sequence of devices indexed by positive integers, where every device can be in two states: $0$ (idle) and $1$ (active). Start from the `ground state' of the system when all bits are in $0$-state. In our first Binary…
Fake coin problems using balance scales to identify one fake coin and its type among n coins (n > 2) were solved by Dyson in 1946. Dyson gave adaptive solutions with the minimum number of weighings where later weighings may be dependent on…
What would you do if you were invited to play a game where you were given \$25 and allowed to place bets for 30 minutes on a coin that you were told was biased to come up heads 60% of the time? This is exactly what we did, gathering 61…
We study an urn process containing red and blue balls and two different strategies to reinforce the urn. Namely, a generalized P\'olya-type strategy versus an i.i.d. one. At each step, one of the two reinforcement strategies is chosen by…
We give an excellent approximation of the average number of spins of a simplified version of a two-player version of the game Dreidel. We also make a conjecture on the average number of spins of the full version of the game.
We consider the urn setting with two different objects, ``good'' and ``bad'', and analyze the number of draws without replacement until a good object is picked. Although the expected number of draws for this setting is a standard textbook…