jeff@hpcnoe.UUCP (12/16/85)
Surprisingly, there seems to be some confusion about what the probabilities of throwing certain number with two dice. This is an attempt to settle the matter (so we can get these rail baron probabilities down). The simplest way I can explain it is that the two dice are independent of each other (one does not affect the other), therefore the different possible rolls are show in the following table: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ---------------- 1 | 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 | 3 4 5 6 7 8 3 | 4 5 6 7 8 9 4 | 5 6 7 8 9 10 5 | 6 7 8 9 10 11 6 | 7 8 9 10 11 12 There are 36 entries in the table, equally likely to be thrown. There are 2 entries for 3, therefore the probability of throwing a 3 would be 2/36 = 5.56%. This can be summarized as: 2 : 1/36 = 2.78% 3 : 2/36 = 5.56% 4 : 3/36 = 8.33% 5 : 4/36 = 11.11% 6 : 5/36 = 13.89% 7 : 6/36 = 16.67% 8 : 5/36 = 13.89% 9 : 4/36 = 11.11% 10 : 3/36 = 8.33% 11 : 2/36 = 5.56% 12 : 1/36 = 2.78% -- Jeff Wu ..!ihnp4!hpfcla!j_wu