Use the BACK button on your browser to return to the main text document

Worksheet #2
Name__________________
Date___________________

Your job is to explore the following questions. Place your answers on poster paper. We will discuss what each group came up with as a class.

1. In the scenario I presented to you, we found the following theoretical probabilities as they pertain to the rules of backgammon:

P(4)= 18/36= 1/2 (i.e. reads as "the probability of rolling a 4..")
P(7)= 6/36 =1/6
P(8)= 7/36
P(11)= 2/36= 1/18

A. Do you see any purpose in finding these probabilities? In other words, why did I ask you to find out these values?

B. How did we come up with these values?

DO NOT COMPLETE #2 UNTIL INSTRUCTED

2. In our scenario, we figured out that the chance of rolling a 4 in backgammon was 18/36 or 1/2.

A: In your own words describe what this ratio means.

B: How much do you "trust" or "believe" in these values.

DO NOT COMPLETE #3 UNTIL INSTRUCTED

3. How would you test to see if any of the above probabilities are true? Try to be as specific as you can.

DO NOT COMPLETE #4 UNTIL INSTRUCTED

4. Judging by what has happened in class, tell me how you think mathematicians came up with theoretical probabilities like: "The probability of getting Heads or Tails when tossing a coin is 1/2 or The probability of rolling a die and getting a 2 is 1/6"

5. Jakob Bernoulli-A dear friend to all mathematics teachers once said:

Further, it cannot escape anyone that for judging in this way about any event at all, it is not enough to use one or two trials, but rather a great number of trials is required. And sometimes the stupidest man--by some instinct of nature per se and by no previous instruction (this is truly amazing)--knows for sure that the more observations of this sort that are taken, the less the danger will be of straying from the mark.

Use the BACK button on your browser to return to the main text document