For a person clicking on a button and writing down results, 10 or 20 trials is a lot. For a
computer to run 10 or 20 trials and keep track of the results requires about a millisecond
of processor time.
So let’s ask the computer to do more. 100 trials? 1000 trials? Sure, no problem.
In the applet below, when you click the "Simulate 1 year" button, the computer will
run 1 trial of 100 sickdays (i.e., one sick-year), count how many fell on Monday or Friday,
and put a bar on the chart in the appropriate spot.
First, simulate a “year” worth of sickdays. How many M/F sickdays were there? Keep going a year at a time until the "100 years" button lights up. Click the "100 years" button. What is the average # of M/F sickdays? |
Do the results in the applet support or reject Dilbert’s hypothesis (that sickdays are random)?