On Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:38:33 GMT, mackeral@remove~this~first~yahoo.com (J. Williams) wrote:
> On 29 Nov 2001 07:03:13 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Robert J. > MacG. Dawson) wrote: > > > >There is probably a reverse trend in the extreme tail; people probably > >overestimate the probability of getting (say) red fifty times in a row > >at Roulette simply because we don't have a good feel for really large > >and small numbers. > > I think you are right in that assumption. When I taught probability, > I found students had difficulty sensing numerical enormity or its > opposite in scientific notation or lots of zeros. Dealing with 16 > zeros to the right of the decimal, for example, becomes a complete > abstraction. - whereas, by contrast, we scientists can right it out with "scientific notation" with its powers of ten, and have something concrete, not abstract, because it is additive in the exponents.... or am I just making another complete abstraction of it? -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================
