Thursday, June 8, 2017

Thunderstroms And Coin Flipping

You may be thinking this blog is about people flipping coins in a thunderstrom to see if  lighting would hit them. Kind of dangerous but amusing.

Actually  I am going to show how to figure how far a thunderstorm is.After  that, the odds of flipping a coin, believe it or not the odds change when the coin is flipped more than once.

One day I was watching the new Mcgyver and his friend Jack counted off 11 seconds and said the thunderstorm is 2 miles away. Was he right? Sort of ,it was actually 2 1/5 miles away.

Once you see  lighting  start counting off the seconds until you hear thunder and divide that result by 5.

 It won't be exact but it will be a ballpark figure. Remember lighting can strike 10 miles away from the storm. So if you figure the thunderstrom is 15 miles away doesn't mean you're safe; Go inside a safe building.

Also if a thunderstrom seems like it came to an end, wait another 1/2 hour it may start up again.

Now for the odds of flipping a coin either heads or tails. 

When the coin is flipped only once that is of course is 1 out of  2 odds; But your odds change when you flip the coin more than once.

If you filp the coin twice your odds are 1 out of 4
                       1/2  x  1/2 = 1/4

Flipping the coin three times your odds are 1 out of 8
                       1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/8

Flipping the coin four times the odds are 16 to 1.
Flipping the coin five times the odds are  32 to 1.
and so on. Why would a person need to know this? 
Probably to win money on quiz shows.   :)
                     
                                    *****END****



                     

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