February 2012
When you toss a coin there is a 50% chance that you will get the winning side up, may it be the head or tail. By the law of probability, you should get lucky half the time. Why is it then, when I toss a coin I always seem to get the wrong side up? I choose the side with very careful consideration but at the final moment, the coin decides to turn the other cheek. In a civilized society, turning the other cheek should quell any violent thoughts but this time it elicits the exactly opposite response. I feel like killing the coin.
Two very fundamental questions arise here. Firstly, how does the coin know what side I have chosen? Secondly, why it then decides to hide the very side I so fervently desire? Ok, it does not happen all the time, but it does seem like that.
Surely I can predict correctly if I compute all the factors involved here, such as the magnitude of tossing force, the comparative mass of the top and bottom halves of the coin, the temperature, humidity and velocity of surrounding air particles, the earth’s gravitational and magnetic field forces, the precise angle of the coin at the start of the toss, the direction, height and distance travelled by the coin. Oh, should I take in to account the relative positions of Moon, Sun and other massive stellar bodies? Will the train running about half a kilometre away affect the result? What about the baby, crying next door? I give up. One can never have absolutely all the information.
As you have guessed, the flipping of coin is just a metaphor for myriads of decisions we have to take every day consciously and unconsciously without having all the information. We make a guess sometimes half educated, mostly uneducated and hope for the best, the so-called intuitive choice. The law of probability rules our universe. This is also not absolutely certain but is the most probable truth.
“One can never have absolutely all the information” does not give a licence to make a decision without any information. Even before you make a choice on coin flipping, do check if the two sides of the coin are different. Making a decision without taking into account the available information is morally wrong even if the outcome turns out to be right. Rationality is what makes us a sane human being. Gambling without compunction is for complete idiots or tyrannical dictators.
CLICK ON THE COIN TO FLIP
