Prediction

[Mike Haven]

if everyone who views this post "votes" for a number below then it should be the case that each number receives the same number of votes, roughly speaking

i predict that one particular number will stick out from the crowd like a sore thumb sticks out from a crowd of healthy thumbs

all i ask for this experiment is that you vote for the first number that comes into your head - please don't try to then choose what you perceive as being an "unlikely" number

thanks

You wrote:
"if everyone who views this post "votes" for a number below then it should be the case that each number receives the same number of votes, roughly speaking"

Well, even assuming randomly picking the numbers, which will obviously not be the case, the number of votes will differ by "quite a bit".

You also wrote:

i predict that one particular number will stick out from the crowd like a sore thumb sticks out from a crowd of healthy thumbs.


Depending on the quantitive definition of the ol'sore thumb thing, you're not going too far out on a limb.

[Mike Haven]

yes

as at vote number 12 the graph is exactly as i predicted

(ps - i wrote the number down and stuck it on the inside of a cafe window in downtown las vegas, by the way - sorry - forgot to mention that earlier - [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] )

(pps - are there only 12 visitors to this forum?)

[irchans]

This is a good question for the stat people. How many unique people are likely to have viewed the popular threads in the probability forum? Or, if you want to be specific, how many unique people viewed the "Probabilty question on roulette for class-Need help ASAP" thread?

Here is my guess (WAG). There were 213 views and 13 replies. Assuming that the regular readers read all the replies, then that makes 213/14 ~= 15 regular readers.

[Inthacup]

I'm fairly sure that the visitor counter only counts unique visitors.

[irchans]

I tried the following experiment to test the unique viewers hypothesis.

Experiment:
I "visited" the golf thread 10 times in 30 seconds. After each visit I wrote down the "Views" number.

Result:
Each time the number of views for golf went up by exactly 1. Even if I read two or three posts in the thread, it went up by exactly one.

[Mike Haven]

well, my prediction was 7 and we got 8 out of 29 voting for 7 - a big winner

6 got nought, which i found interesting

there must be a bet in there somewhere!