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Re: Question: arrival-time puzzle



At 10:39 AM 7/10/00 -0600, Jim Green wrote:
> >>Fact: At any random time, if you ask how long it has been since the last
> >>bus, the answer is 10 minutes, on average.
> >
> >Is this true???

Perhaps someone could show that this is true.


Does anyone have any reason to believe it is not true?

Would anyone care to offer a testable alternative hypothesis?

Any theoretical arguments?

Any experimental data?


Anyone who cares can do the experiment: Roll two dice. Roll them a couple
hundred times. Record the results. Pick a random point on the list, say
the 97th entry. Actually, it's less ambiguous if you pick a point on the
list BETWEEN two entries. Starting there, count forward until you see
snake-eyes. Record the count. Also count backwards until you see
snake-eyes. Record the count. Repeat the experiment until you've got
sufficient statistics to know what the average counts are. Do not repeat
the experiment by re-measuring the same data; get new random data for each
iteration.

Are the counts you measure the same or different from what you would get
from a list that NON-randomly cycled through the 36 possible dice-outcomes
in order, like clockwork?