Can a Computer Accurately Simulate Rolling Dice?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My question is, "Can a Computer Accurately Simulate Rolling a Dice?" Methods/Materials 1. Notebook, pencil or pen (to record results) 3. 1 six-sided die 4. Flat area such as tabletop minimum of 1m by 1m 5. Computer 6. Psuedo-random number generator capable of generating a random number from 1 to 6 100 times I rolled a die and recorded the result 100 times in a table in my notebook, then went to my computer and ran the pseudo-random number generator (which generates a number from 1 to 6 100 times) and recorded those results as well. I repeated this cycle 3 times, then averaged how many times in 100 each number appeared, and created a graph with that data. Results Averages of how many times each face appeared (after 3 trials of 100 rolls each): >Human - 1: 14.3, 2: 17.6, 3: 14.3, 4: 19.3, 5: 15.3, 6: 19 >Computer - 1: 17.6, 2: 18, 3: 15.6, 4: 15, 5: 17.6, 6: 16 Conclusions/Discussion If you were to plot the above data in a graph, the bars would not be the same height. But we are dealing with true randomness here, and so exact sameness doesn#t occur. The numbers compensate for each other; the computer rolled 1 more than I did, but I rolled 4 more than the computer. So yes, I think that my hypothesis is correct and that a computer can accurately simulate rolling a dice. Random number generators are used all the time # they would have to be accurate. The generator I wrote is just a single example of one.

Competition history

• CSEF 2006 Mathematics & Software · Entry J1210

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