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Re: [Phys-L] From a Math Prof (physics BS major) at my institution ( math challenge)



Second list is the real one. There are a number of consecutive number strings (or close to consecutive) there which people will religiously avoid when making up random numbers.

rwt

On 2/17/2014 11:33 AM, Rauber, Joel wrote:
The below may be tangentially related to discussions of entropy
(See subject heading)


I asked my Math 316 (Discrete Math) to randomly pick 5 numbers from 1 to 35. This is the same as the "South Dakota Cash Lottery" that has drawings twice a week. I told them that I would compare their "random" numbers to actual numbers drawn in the lottery. They were instructed to try to make their numbers as random as possible so they looked just like the real random numbers. I had 21 responses, they are in one of the two lists below. The other list is the numbers drawn in the lottery from Dec 7, 2013 to Feb 15, 2014. Can you tell which list is the student's list? Hint: there is an easy, almost trivial, way to do this, or least to locate the most likely student list.


02-06-07-25-34
03-09-12-15-34
06-16-21-28-32
06-10-13-21-23
04-18-26-27-34
03-06-17-27-32
03-11-21-22-35
01-02-08-17-27
07-12-14-24-31
03-07-14-18-27
07-13-22-25-31
07-12-23-31-32
04-17-18-22-35
08-15-17-20-25
12-16-18-29-34
02-07-11-16-21
08-23-24-32-35
17-19-23-29-31
09-16-27-28-32
06-15-19-26-32
06-13-15-23-31



11-17-19-28-31
03-11-29-32-35
14-21-24-28-33
09-14-22-23-31
03-21-26-30-31
05-15-20-27-29
02-23-24-25-26
07-13-20-24-25
03-23-26-27-28
06-20-21-26-29
01-10-14-19-35
12-18-27-32-35
02-06-24-27-28
03-08-11-21-30
09-14-20-25-31
04-13-19-21-28
10-11-12-21-31
02-07-11-20-24
06-17-25-29-30
13-23-24-26-34
09-17-21-25-26
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