[PD] how to make a proportional canon

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Wed Jul 11 15:34:42 CEST 2007


On Wed, 11 Jul 2007, Derek Holzer wrote:

> yes, of course I meant a non-repeating number. I was concentrating on the 
> end-results rather then the details of the process, but it's a useful 
> distinction when trying to document it. Thanks.

The end-result that you should stress is that there are going to be no 
duplicates, because they would conflict. All of the rest is secondary, 
especially randomness.

Half the point of referencing the Dilbert strip is the repetition. 
Independently-random numbers can be duplicates.

example 1. Picking two numbers from 0 to 99 you have a 1% chance that they 
are the same.

example 2. If $0 uses uniformly-random numbers from 1000 to 9999 and you 
instantiate at least 110 abstractions you have more chances of getting 
duplicates than not. (This is usually known under the name "Birthday 
paradox")

example 3. the original Birthday paradox. the probability of N people of 
having shared birthdays: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:050329-birthday2.png

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada


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