Related papers: Random Coin Tossing with unknown bias
Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two spatially separated players, who in principle do not trust each other, wish to establish a common random bit. If we limit ourselves to classical communication, this task requires…
Given a sequence of numbers $\{p_n\}$ in $[0,1]$, consider the following experiment. First, we flip a fair coin and then, at step $n$, we turn the coin over to the other side with probability $p_n$, $n\ge 2$. What can we say about the…
While it is well known that a Turing machine equipped with the ability to flip a fair coin cannot compute more that a standard Turing machine, we show that this is not true for a biased coin. Indeed, any oracle set $X$ may be coded as a…
How many fair coin tosses to choose 1 of $n$ options with uniform probability? Although a probability problem, the solution is essentially number-theoretic, with special roles for Mersenne numbers, Fermat numbers, and the haupt exponent. We…
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…
Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two distrustful parties wish to generate a random bit in order to choose between two alternatives. This task is impossible to realize when it relies solely on the asynchronous exchange of…
Randomness is a central concept to statistics and physics. Here, a statistical analysis shows experimental evidence that tossing coins and finding last digits of prime numbers are identical regarding statistics for equally likely outcomes.…
When humans infer underlying probabilities from stochastic observations, they exhibit biases and variability that cannot be explained on the basis of sound, Bayesian manipulations of probability. This is especially salient when beliefs are…
The problem of creating a three-sided dice with the probability of it landing on each of its sides being equal to 1/3 has been around for many years. Various approaches have been attempted, but as different authors achieved at different…
Consider $n$ independent, biased coins, each with a known probability of heads. Presented with an ordering of these coins, flip (i.e., toss) each coin once, in that order, until we have observed both a *head* and a *tail*, or flipped all…
Given a mixture between two populations of coins, "positive" coins that each have -- unknown and potentially different -- bias $\geq\frac{1}{2}+\Delta$ and "negative" coins with bias $\leq\frac{1}{2}-\Delta$, we consider the task of…
Let S\subset (0,1). Given a known function f:S\to (0,1), we consider the problem of using independent tosses of a coin with probability of heads p (where p\in S is unknown) to simulate a coin with probability of heads f(p). We prove that if…
Parrondo's coin-tossing games comprise two games, $A$ and $B$. The result of game $A$ is determined by the toss of a fair coin. The result of game $B$ is determined by the toss of a $p_0$-coin if capital is a multiple of $r$, and by the…
Renewal processes are zero-dimensional processes defined by independent intervals of time between zero crossings of a random walker. We subject renewal processes them to stochastic resetting by setting the position of the random walker to…
This paper deals with the application of Approximation Theory type techniques to study a classical problem in Probability: estimating the parameter of a biased coin. For this purpose, a Minimax Estimation problem is considered and the…
Tossing a coin is the most elementary Monte Carlo experiment. In a computer the coin is replaced by a pseudo random number generator. It can be shown analytically and by exact enumerations that popular random number generators are not…
Penney's Ante exhibits non-transitivity when two target strings race to appear in a shared stream of coin tosses. We study instead independent string races, where each player observes their own independent and identically distributed…
In a recent paper [1], it has been claimed that the outcomes of a quantum coin toss which is idealized as an infinite binary sequence is 1-random. We also defend the correctness of this claim and assert that the outcomes of quantum…
In the game of Matching Pennies, Alice and Bob each hold a penny, and at every tick of the clock they simultaneously display the head or the tail sides of their coins. If they both display the same side, then Alice wins Bob's penny; if they…
The Sleeping Beauty problem is a puzzle in probability theory that has gained much attention since Elga's discussion of it [Elga, Adam, Analysis 60 (2), p.143-147 (2000)]. Sleeping Beauty is put asleep, and a coin is tossed. If the outcome…