paradoxes of randomness

[Dave Howe]

Sarad AV wrote:
> We say that, we-don't know or it wont be random. Then
> we say that we must see roughly equal numbers of heads
> and tails for large trials. Thats what I fail to
> understand.
its the difference between any one test (which will be completely
unpredictable) and probabilities (where you know that, unless there is a
weighting in force, the odds of any one of n options coming up will be 1
in n, so you would expect to see roughly equal numbers of each)

as an analogy - imagine a horse race where all five horses are roughly
equal in fitness and rider skill. a bookie would give equal odds on each
(not 1 in 5, as he has to make a profit, but no horse would be "worth"
more than another). You would *expect* that, if the race was run enough
times, each horse would run about a fifth of them - but that won't help
you predict the result of any one race in particular, nor would it be
impossible for one horse to win all the races, purely from luck.