Fun Science Idea

Random walk -- Stand in an open area and flip a coin. Take one step to the right if heads comes up. Take a step to the left if tails comes up. Keep doing this until you have taken 25 steps and then stop. How far from your original position will you end up?

If you repeat this experiment many times, a few times you will end up much closer than average and a few times you will end up much farther away. You would usually end up about 5 steps from your original position. For some reason the average distance(from the starting point) times the average distance equals the number of steps taken(5X5=25). If you increase the total number of steps and coin tosses to 100 the average distance would be 10 steps.

The random walk is similar to many of the movements in nature such as the movement of molecules within a liquid or gas. Even though the motion is random an accurate prediction can be made about what the average result will be.

source: Experiments You Can Do At Home from Professor Clint Sprott http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/WOP/HomeExpPhys.html

Back to Fun science experiments menu
Back to fun things menu
SLICKDITTY Home