Why real coin flips look fake: streaks and the way we imagine randomness
30seconds
Ask people to write down 100 random coin flips and they almost never include a streak of six, yet a real coin makes one about four times in five.
Our gut expects short sequences to look evenly mixed, so we switch sides far too often. A fair coin has no memory, so streaks are normal.
Try to spot the real coin against a faked strip, then fake 50 flips yourself and see how you compare with the odds.
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