Randomness is Random - Numberphile

Why HN readers recommended it

Recommended as an accessible demonstration that people are bad at producing or judging random sequences.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Numberphile

Topic

perception of randomness

Format

explainer

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

4

HN mentions in dataset

4

Recommendation years in dataset

2019–2022

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• There is a very accessible "numberphile" video which I think is closely related to this, about playing the odds on predicting elements of a nominally-random coin-flip sequence using the expected run length. [VIDEO]

• I would argue that the problem with frequentist statistics is that it aligns with humans' flawed intuition of how randomness works. People are inherently obsessed with finding patterns to support their hypotheses. The problem is that what we perceive as random and extremely unlikely events …

• Oh, I remember good old fallout 1-2 when you have 42% hit chance but still miss 7 times in a row. There is also a good Numberphile video on what we think random really is (it is not) [VIDEO]