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399 points seanhunter | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.631s | source
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NameError ◴[] No.42184405[source]
Easy way to get a fair result from an unfair coin toss: Flip the coin twice in a row, in this case starting with the same side facing up both times, so it's equally unfair for both tosses. If you get heads-heads or tails-tails, discard and start over until you get either heads-tails or tails-heads, which have equal probabilities (so you can say something like HT = "heads" and TH = "tails").

This works even if the coin lands heads 99% of the time, as long as it's consistent (but you'll probably have to flip a bunch of times in that case).

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legobmw99 ◴[] No.42184538[source]
I’ve seen this attributed to John von Neumann, of all people
replies(1): >>42184702 #
1. NameError ◴[] No.42184702[source]
It seems like he did everything! I first heard of Von Neumann in international relations & economics classes as the person who established game theory, then later in CS classes as the creator of mergesort, cellular automata, Von Neumann architecture, etc.
replies(1): >>42184874 #
2. vonneumannstan ◴[] No.42184874[source]
Wait til you hear about what he did in Math and Physics...

Very easy to claim he was the most intelligent human to ever live. Or perhaps he was never human...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)

replies(1): >>42185053 #
3. EGreg ◴[] No.42185053[source]
I consider LLMs to be the first successful non-von-neumann architecture in many decades