How to rig a fair coin

[@thequeenofspades]

Tom Scott. Too old to know Megamind. Too young to know the Hagia Sofia.

[@cyborg98]

Thank you for reminding me about Two Of These People Are Lying.

[@myladycasagrande863]

Which is weird, because I'm around the same age as Tom and both of those things are familiar to me.

[@Anolaana]

Hagia Sofia, you mean that place with the sweaty column? :P

[@danwigodsky2612]

Halfdan was here.

[@abigailcooling6604]

@@cyborg98 Don't you mean One Of These People Is Lying?

[@Thoughtsmith]

Tom, I'm older than you are. It's not that you're not Gen-Z, it's that not watching movies or playing video games reduces the number of references you get.

[@pikekeke]

Yeah, I'm older than gen z and I know it from pop culture references

[@peachierose3356]

I'm gen z and I didn't know too lmao

[@GamePlague]

Yeah. It's a 2010 movie, you don't have to be under 30 to know about it.

[@MyRegardsToTheDodo]

Also, MegaMind is a 2010 movie, not really a Gen-Z thing.

[@UltramasterBDJ]

*"Things Tom might not know" ;)* ... Now I kinda want a series where other people introduce Tom to videogames he didn't play and explain pop culture references _to him._ XD

[@gibberishname]

After hearing this, i spun a pennies 100 times. A 2021 union-shield back got 46% heads 54% tails, a 1995 Lincoln memorial back got 55% heads, 45% tails. Didn't have any 1958 wheat cents or 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial backs to try.

[@MNbenMN]

I spun a 2007 (memorial tail) and 2019 (shield tail) each 30 times, slight bias toward heads in both runs.

[@MarylandFarmer.]

But did you try buttering any of them?

[@mattgies]

In 1982 they changed from a mostly copper planchet to mostly zinc (both compositions were issued that year). So a pre-1982 coin might yield a different result than a post-1982.

[@MNbenMN]

@@MarylandFarmer. Alas, I only had margarine...

[@lorenzoblum868]

Although I appreciate most Tom Scott's video, but kind of new with "lateral", I'm not sure those riddles can be taken very seriously, all coins are probably slightly unbalanced and on one penny the difference must be so insignificant, hard to believe this minor detail could have an impact considering other determinants involved such as dynamics, angles, surface of table, air flow....

[@dylanrambow2704]

It's my home state of Illinois, the "Land of Lincoln," that doesn't want the penny removed. Even though Lincoln was actually born in Kentucky.

[@TaoOfStuff]

It seems the actual reason is heavy lobbying by Jarden Zinc Products, LLC--the company which has manufactured the zinc blank used in the penny's minting since the 1800s. Plot twist, they also manufacture the Ukrainian 5 & 10-whatever coins.

[@myladycasagrande863]

Never mind that if the US stopped minting pennies, they would still be in circulation for a long time because there are tons of them.

[@danniluxgarbe429]

@@myladycasagrande863 heck, I work as a till operator and we still see Canadian pennies (Which haven't been minted for over a decade, now) turning up in US registers.

[@Cossieuk]

How have we not had Tech Diff version of Lateral yet

[@IvoTrausch]

I second, third and fourth this idea!

[@musabafridi8034]

@@IvoTrausch I fifth, sixth and seventh this idea!

[@SharienGaming]

and here i thought the trick was in picking a sequence of heads and tails each and see whoose happens first (and the person going second can simply pick a sequence that ends with the start of the other persons sequence)... dont quite remember how much of an edge it gives you, but it probably depends on how long the sequences are

[@thechrisgrice]

I was thinking the same. I remember James Grime explaining it on Numberphile.

[@cybergeek11235]

"Tell us more about the beforetimes, Grampa Tom!"

[@DiMono]

There's also a way to flip a coin where instead of going end-over-end, it basically rotates in the air, so whichever side starts up will remain up. You can rig any coin flip with any coin this way. Sadly, I do not know how to perform this method.

[@mattgies]

Arguably that's not a "flip" because "flip" implies alternating between the starting face and upside-down. I'd call this other method a "spin", personally.

[@adamsbja]

Another trick is to grab the coin, feel what side your fingers are touching, and then either open your hand or flip it as needed. I haven't been able to do it reliably (fast enough to fool someone, anyway) but know someone who can. The front and back of a US quarter are pretty notably different (though there's a bunch of state quarter variants now that differ).

[@xenontesla122]

@@adamsbja I thought this would be the answer. I'd imagine the pillars on the back of a penny are easy to feel

[@FHL-Devils]

5:15 - No, it's streaming on a schedule.

[@AndreVandal]

I also felt old when in a conversation I suggested using maybe a BW tv and everybody in the room looked at me and asked what was a BW tv

[@user-yx2xm1bg6j]

I’m older too, only got the Megamind reference because for a brief, very painful period, my daughter was obsessed with the film.

[@Milamber1982]

By tilting the coin slightly when you spin it you can actually determine which side of any coin you spin on a table.

[@ReyosBlackwood]

4:51 It was West Wing, Sam was trying to get votes for a bill (a real one that was actually introduced in congress) that would among other things eliminate the penny. It was never going to get a reading in the West Wing because the Speaker of the House was from Illinois, which is the state where Lincoln was elected to congress from to start his political career, he's a bigger hero in that state than most of the rest of the country. Yes I'm that generation too, and it was an amazing show.

[@bonelesswatermelon420]

I thought it was going to be like the plot twist of the Slumdog Millionaire novel where [spoilers] . . . . . . . . . . The coin that the main character uses throughout the entire story to make decisions has two heads on it, meaning that he has never relied on luck across every major decision of his life.

[@outsideaglass]

This is how you know people are good friends. Other shows here, the host has to say "Warmer... no, colder colder not even close to the answer!" and here Taha just goes saying "Sabrina is making that face that means we were close and now not!" Great job there Taha :) I mean I haven't finished watching yet so maybe you were far off with that but I just love AIP friendship vibes, love y'all's channel!

[@shotgunpanda]

The West Wing is available for free on All4 in the UK! (or whatever Channel 4's streaming service is called these days)

[@garybarnes4169]

04:57 Re: watching The West Wing "There's no way to do it legally in the UK either." I beg to differ, it's on Channel 4's website. I can't put a link here, because KZbin will block it, but you should now have enough information to find it.

[@qtheplatypus]

The end sounded almost like they where going to Segway into a VPN sponcership

[@izaactheberean6860]

I thought it was the fact Abby choose 4 places while Bella chose 1 place. Oh well. I learned something new.

[@basoon]

West Wing is on All4 in the Uk!

[@gljames24]

I was thinking they would use D or P on the coin to decide. Denver or Philadelphia is where coins are manufactured and there might be a difference in the number of pennies manufactured in one vs the other.

[@WyvernYT]

Lincoln does not wear a hat on the penny. (I figure a lot of readers here will be from places outside the US and not be familiar with American money designs.) Lincoln also appears on the $5 bill but doesn't wear a hat there either. Interestingly, while the design changed recently, for many years the back side of the penny showed the Lincoln Monument in Washington DC, a Greek temple style monument with lots of columns - and if you looked in the very center you could see the famous statue of Lincoln there. So the same man appeared on both sides of the coin.

[@elijahdage5523]

I always heard that the reason they don't get rid of pennies is because they cost more to make than they're worth. Apparently this is a good thing for some industries that rely on selling a product, like agriculture.

[@almostfm]

No, it's because the US government is the largest consumer of zinc in the US since they mint close to 8 _billion_ cents each year. The zinc lobby has a lot of money to throw around.

[@88porpoise]

Coins costing more than a cent to produce is irrelevant. After all coins are typically used many times. It may be financially inefficient for the government but that is all. One of the big arguments to dump the penny, on the other hand, is the cost on time and effort to deal with them in retail (counting those recieved and providing change to the penny) In cases where the value of the metal is significantly lower than the value of the coin you get an issue as it is profitable to melt down coins. This was why the US switched from copper to zinc as the main metal in pennies. But a penny worth of zinc is well under the cost of a cent, it is the manufacturing process that drives the cost over 1 cent There are various reasons for the opposition to dumping her penny. The zinc mining and production industry is a big one of them. The Lincoln thing is a second reason commonly seen. Although I suspect this is more of an excuse for the next two groups than an actual reason. There is a large "change is bad" segment in the US (change as in not staying the same, not as in coins). And if your pappy and his pappy and his pappy used pennies than dag-nabbit you will use pennies too. Then there is the irrational "oh everything will cost more" crowd. Which you can look atultiple countries that have done this and clearly see is wrong. Getting rid of the dollar bill sees many of the same reasons (plus "change is bad" referring to opposition to coins alongside the other meaning of change).

[@ryangjewell]

I was going to guess that one mint mark was much more common than another.

[@PoniesNSunshine]

Im surprised no one thought steel penny, but then no ones from the us.

[@andyu69]

And then call, best of 3 or 5.

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

It isn't that hard to flip a coin and cheat. If you give it some spin, you can throw it pretty high and it will only flip once or twice. You can watch it. Then control it when you flip it over onto the back of your hand. I do that when deciding disputes between my children if I think one of them should win in that scenario, but I want it to look random. Takes a bit of practice, but I can control it most of the time and I'm not a very good magician.

[@protocol6]

The person with the coin shouldn't ever get to call it. And letting them catch it is a bad idea since it's pretty easy with some practice to make it land a specific way if you get to catch and slap it down. It's not entirely dissimilar to successfully juggling a knife.

[@MegaLokopo]

Heads you lose, tails I win?

[@TXnine7nine]

5:11 Elder abuse!!!

[@dannymac6368]

Buy The West Wing. Buy it now.

[@ZeroTsar]

mega mind

[@samtherat6]

Abby says, “Heads I won, tails you lose” and there’s a 20% chance that she’s too stupid to figure out what happened.

[@FilmscoreMetaler]

You mean a 60 % chance?

[@wta1518]

@@FilmscoreMetaler How do you correct someone and still be wrong? It's 80%

[@CoolInMyOwnWay]

@@wta1518 60% chance she doesn't notice, 20% she does but still loses

[@cannot-handle-handles]

@@wta1518 Well, it depends how you look at it: If Bella doesn't notice in 60% of the cases, Abby wins immediately in 60% of the cases - but what happens in the remaining 40% of the cases? If in the remaining 40% of the cases, they flip a fair coin, then Abby has another 50% * 40% chance of winning, so a total of 80%.

[@ilovemydogronnyj]

Dani & Bill and Sabrina, Melissa & Taha are like my favourite guests of this show, the chemistry is always on top

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

In high school and college, I practiced flipping a US quarter with such "flick exactly the same every time so that it goes exactly the same height every time, and catch it at the right time" that I could "force" a certain result more than 9 times out of 10. If I set it on my thumb heads-up, it would land on my hand heads 9 times out of 10 and vice versa. Which meant the whole "flip the coin, catch it, then slap it on the back of your other hand" would reverse it. So if the person called "heads" in the air, I'd catch-then-slap-onto-other-hand; if they called "tails", I'd just catch it without flipping to the other hand.

[@SonicRooncoPrime]

Genuinely amazing.

[@ColinCarFan]

90% chance with all the potential small effects that could change the outcome is incredible. Almost unbelievable.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

@@ColinCarFan It took a *LOT* of practice. Thousands of flips. Soon after I got to ~90%, the US introduced the "50 state quarters", which completely messed me up. Could no longer rely on any random quarter working, had to keep "old quarters".

[@NickCBax]

And do you work as a magician with those multiple outs?

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

@@NickCBax No, but I got multiple free drinks at the bar. :-D

[@jasonbailey9139]

If you're spinning a coin on a table, you can skew the results by tilting the coin so it isn't perpendicular to the table. It will look like a legit spin, but the side on the acute angle face will remain down the entire time...at least I think that's what I learned from Brian Brushwood's videos over the years.

[@lateralcast]

Interesting - that's presumably using the same kind of technique, but I can see that working.

[@jasonbailey9139]

@@lateralcast not sure if the link will work kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIjEZ5tto6amjdE but it's Scam Nations "11 Very, Very, Very Good Magic Tricks and Scams..." and the one in particular I'm thinking of is bookmarked as Nickel Poker (5:44).

[@MountainHawkPYL]

There is no hat on Lincoln's head on the 1 cent coin, or the $5 bill for that matter.

[@empath69]

Yeah, I'm surprised that Sabrina being a Canadian HASN'T encountered enough US currency to know that...wait, Gen Z wouldn't know what ANY coinage looks like (especially our own discontinued penny) ...where's my Advil?

[@nate_storm]

coincidentally Lincoln’s hat doesn’t appear on any other currency, either

[@hcblue]

I'm Tom's age and went, "idk how Tom doesn't know Megamind?!". Turns out, I was thinking of The Brain from _Pinky & the Brain_. Yikes, we're old.

[@__dane__]

Ah yes, the 2010 film Megamind, definitely a prominent Gen-Z cultural reference

[@empath69]

I'm Gen X and that film is a 'prominent landmark' in my head. Generalizing always loses details.

[@akuthia]

Sabrina, TV is like streaming on someone else's schedule, and forced, unskipable interruptions

[@qtheplatypus]

“Streaming with forced unskipable interruptions” so twitch?

[@88porpoise]

Instead of "video on demand" it is "video no demand"

[@generalZee]

On no currency is Lincoln wearing his iconic hat, sadly. He also is on the $5 bill, so it seems unlikely that Illinois would be worried about him disappearing from coinage.

[@empath69]

Apparently it's neither Illinois' nor Kentucky's fault for this, but as always capitalist lobbying by the company that makes the zinc blanks the one-cent coins are minted with. Greed is always to blame.

[@RichardWinskill]

Apparently The West Wing is available on Sky, Freevee, and whatever Channel 4 are calling their streaming service at the moment.

[@Dzifii]

Is it just me, or when they start to talk about how they struggled to watch The West Wing, I expect a VPN plug-in is coming up

[@verdatum]

Of course Tom has a nicely done video explaining that watching TV in different countries is just about the only reason for regular people to pay for a VPN; since basically all websites are over HTTPS these days, which is already secure.

[@kleinerprinz99]

@@verdatum there is one caveat and thats open WiFi you get in Hotels or public places, they demand using VPN if you want not only the HTTPS but also the request encrypted however there are temporary solutions for that as well, or youre visiting Defcon or the C3 conventions, then you definately want to use VPN as well ;)

[@voland6846]

@@verdatum Most ISPs block lots of websites, so no, there's lots of other reasons

[@verdatum]

@@voland6846 What weirdo country are you in? Or what illegal stuff are you trying to find? I've been on the internet since the mid-90s and never been blocked by any ISP.

[@voland6846]

@@verdatum In the UK. Most ISPs block: torrent lists, Z-library, Library Genesis, most pirate video-streaming sites, most free-to-use proxy websites and even many paid proxy providers. The list is actually much, *much* longer of course, but I think even people who use the internet just for media consumption would quite like to get around those particular restrictions.

[@yyy222y2]

Television: A steaming service in which you're forced to watch whatever's on a megacorporation's channel, and with no way to harass the person back as there's no chat

[@empath69]

and unskippable ad breaks - you can't even subscribe to avoid them

[@dave5194]

Aw, wish you had included the first question in the clip, that was such a funny moment! Or better yet, the whole episode in video form. It was hilarious from start to finish. Wish we coulda seen your expressions when (spoiler) Sabrina kept nailing answers on the first try.

[@aidenlosh9518]

I could have sworn that this was going to be the thing where you can flick a coin just right and it will tumble in the air without flipping, so you can rig it to land on the side you want it to almost every time.

[@anotherdave1039]

I was thinking the sequence game and strategy explained in kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWXXqoJqi5eco5o where each player picks a sequence of 3 results, but each sequence has a counter-choice that gives an advantage. Like they pick HHH and you pick THH because unless it's 3 heads immediately your sequence will show up first, since you're looking at all flips, not using a set of 3 flips and reset which would give the expected 1/8.

[@emdivine]

if I remember correctly what you do is take the last result from your opponent's sequence, reverse it and stick it at the front of yours

[@jerrik-415]

Butter the penny! Attached the penny to a cat! Spin the bottle but with a penny! I'm dying over here 🤣

[@manas7372]

Tom being bullied by 3 GenZs.. absolutely fantastic!

[@Kombivar]

I wanna see the highlight of the album question - that was epic!!! Lateral gets better every time!

[@wolfelkan8183]

Too bad this podcast isn't sponsored. That would have been one of the best segues into a NordVPN ad I've ever heard.

[@ReyosBlackwood]

3:45 it's less that the head is particularly heavy, but that the reverse of most pennies are particularly light. the Lincoln Memorial on most pennies in circulation is a lot of thin columns with empty space between them. the same is true for the older wheat pennies, where there's two heads of wheat and only words (thin lines, lots of space) but I don't know if this is true of the shield pennies which have more mass sticking out, and shift the center of gravity less towards the heads side.

[@LanaSims-jv2bn]

The Millenial/Gen Z dynamic in this video is flawless. Younger sibling energy

[@TadRichard]

Abby can give herself a nearly 100% probability of a win if she suggests best 4 out of 7.

[@ghostsnwitches]

Man these episodes with the Answer in Progress crew are the best, great chemistry between them and Tom!

[@TonyAlba]

Heads I win, tails you loose.

[@iang4662]

The West Wing is on All4 On Demand (Channel 4 catch up free to view) FYI

[@JelenaMajic]

crying at Tom setting himself up for generation difference only to be hit with "what's an actual tv? is it like streaming"

[@treespunk]

Boo hoo Lincoln won't be on coins anymore. Being on the $5 bill is 500 times better

[@ReyosBlackwood]

1:47 butter side down is based on two things, first that the buttered side is actually heavier, but second because toast dropped after being buttered is usually knocked off the table, it tends to flip over once as it goes off the table, fall edge down and then when that lands, the heavier buttered side will fall forward, or if it falls with a 'face' down that flipping once makes it the buttered face.

[@88porpoise]

One note is butter side up vs down also depends on how you butter it. If you are someone who just crushes the butter into the bread, you make the butter side concave which means it will tend towards butter side up. Meanwhile, if you lightly apply the butter with a gentle stroke, then you maintain the shape and add weight to the butter side so it tends towards butter side down.

[@KernelLeak]

I'm pretty sure a lot of US 1 cent coins were spun after watching this video...

[@jacktattersall9457]

Never make deals with a US penny.

[@bertilhatt]

Tom missed an opportunity to explain _The West Wing_’s absence in Canada by quoting the episode where they consider an invasion-including the perfect “The calligraphy is beautiful.”

[@bigsarge2085]

✌

[@Dsschuh]

I believe Tom was right, that catching a flipping coin in the air is truly random because it has heads up 50% of the time when caught; once a coin is rebounding from the floor over and over a weighted side would tend to land toward the floor.

[@teamcyeborg]

Tip that I learned from a book of magic tricks: The backs of certain coins have very physically distinct designs from the fronts. If you memorize the feeling of the back, you can catch the coin in the air and manipulate it. I believe you're supposed to slap it on your other hand if the wrong side is up, or just show it in your palm if the right side is up?

[@ChimozuFu]

I tested this with a 1 cent. The first hundred I got 58 heads down and 42 tails down. Then I did 100 more and ended up with 128 heads down and 72 tails down. Getting to 300: I ended up with exactly 200 heads down and 100 tails down. Interesting

[@ZeroTsar]

saying "is tv like twitch" is a hilarious spot on comparison

[@erictaylor5462]

If you ever get the chance to visit the grave of John Wilks Booth, you would see the grave is covered with pennies, all heads side up.

[@almostfm]

A lot of US coins have a "heavy" side, although the mint has tried to reduce the difference as much as possible because it makes it easier to mint the coins and have all of the details fully striking up. The "Buffalo" nickel was distinctly "heads side" heavy, while the Walking Liberty half dollar was very "tails side" heavy. Both coins tended to have weaknesses in the striking of the "light" side of the coin, because so much metal flowed to the heavy side.

[@a4d9]

Linear TV on a CRT, land lines with rotary dials on telephones, and no internet... I realize that I'm old.

[@lordtraust]

You can rig a coin flip by catching it and then slapping it on your arm before revelling it. What ever side you started with will usually be the side it will "land" on

[@George_vv]

As someone who has spun coins on tables for fun thousands of times in my life, I can safely say you can rig either side to win 100% of the time if you use both hands.

[@Quasihamster]

The coin landing with the heads up is a constant. Duh.

[@c97f]

Tom missed great opportunity to plugNord VPN there...

[@jpe1]

Tom is mistaken as to why the penny continues to be minted in the USA. The fact that pennies continue to be minted has very little (perhaps nothing at all) to do with what people in any particular state want, instead has everything to do with lobbyists from the lobbying organization “Americans For Common ¢ents” which is funded primarily by zinc mining and manufacturing interested. Specifically, the executive director, Mark Weller, is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by Jarden Zinc Products to lobby Congress on their behalf (Jarden Zinc Products is the company that sells zinc penny blanks to the US Mint) and Weller tirelessly flogs bogus stats from low-quality surveys to claim that “62% of Americans are in favor of keeping the penny.”

[@mementomori5580]

Tom... you're just 3 years older than me and I completely get the Megamind Reference. Like, seriously, don't say it's because of "Gen Z" or something like that. You just don't know about it because you don't care much about movies and video games.

[@notme222]

I knew the spinning trick, but to me that's so well known it didn't even occur to me that's what she was asking.

[@andrewgrant6516]

Ah, Tom you are so innocent. When you snatch a coin out of the air, you swipe your thumb across one face, identify if it's the smooth blob of a head, or the multiple ridges of a fleur de lis, and have time to rotate it once before slapping it onto the back of your other hand. You should always know what you're about to reveal. Prestidigitation is for life, not just for Christmas.

[@salange17]

I just tested this 25 times and got 13 tails to 12 heads. If the true rate was 80%, I should've gotten more than 13 tails 99.8% of the time. I think this is a myth.

[@etourdie]

Here I was thinking you were going to talk about the old mark rober video where he showed that if you practice it you can toss a penny and it looks like it's flipping even though it's just at an angle and spinning, meaning unless you mess up you can guarantee the results

[@serenahiggins1849]

Unfortunately any determined coin flipper knows that the person flipping, or spinning in this case, doesn’t get to pick. The other person does.

[@WilliamHostman]

Lincoln is not pictured with a hat in his common uses, to wit, the $5 bill, the $0.01 coin, and the Memorial statue.

[@un_lucio]

Buttered cat: the only legit perpetual motion machine.

[@gluffoful]

Now what happens if you attach the buttered penny (or slice of toast) on the back of the cat, butter side up, and drop them?

[@Abstract_zx]

you just need to be really skilled at tossing the coin and grabbing it at the exact moment the correct side is up

[@ZT1ST]

@5:06; I was expecting a VPN to be involved here.

[@coyraig8332]

There's a million ways to rig a coin flip

[@thomaswhite3059]

Don't watch the west wing

[@sebastiank1714]

Heads I win - Tails you lose?? = 100% chance I win.

[@expectationlost]

Did Taha not get this straight away?

[@user-en3tx3zu3j]

Melissa is so beautiful

[@ReverendBishop]

Can confirm, there is no hat

[@sophiamarchildon3998]

Initial thoughts: I think Lincoln is the "head" of the penny, and the Lincoln memorial is the "tail". Thus she would bet on it landing on "Lincoln". But that would mean, if accepted, to give her systematic success. So unless there is a study or statistical evidence that shows that 80% would accept this trick as fair play, it's something else. I would bet that it's simply by making the coin rotate and oscillate (always the same side up), rather than flip (changing between result). The untrained eyes, even for some trained, the little glimpses you get of the coin through the air makes it look like it's "going random" and flipping. But it's not. And the success rate of her believable yet fake throw is 80%. But that number specifically? Why not 81%, or 79%?

[@sophiamarchildon3998]

Missed. Makes more sense that way

[@kevinmartin7760]

Why would Bella let Abby both supply the coin and "call it" heads or tails?

[@dragonboyjgh]

See I was thinking a like "pick a hand" situation. Or a specific penny, like a Wheat Penny, Lincoln Memorial penny, or the Shield penny that's lopsided.

[@deebea6364]

This very quickly turned from trivia to roasting Tom for being old 😅

[@timrourke6737]

Channel 4 on demand show the west wing (all series).. I found this out just after buying the dvd’s

[@Furiends]

A penny if it's weighted is definitionally not a fair coin.

[@pollenhead]

Abby is tripping.

[@jaapsch2]

The explanation is completely wrong. It is not about one side bulging or weighing more than the other. The reason is that the edge of the coin slopes to one side, i.e. it is not a cylinder shape but like a slice of a cone. So when you spin it on a hard surface it is standing on the rim of one face and more likely to fall over onto the other, smaller face. You can make this more impressive by standing a whole lot of pennies on their edge in random orientations on a table, and then jolt the table so that the pennies fall over. The outcome will be very skewed rather than fifty-fifty.

[@lateralcast]

Persi Diaconis, a statistician at Stanford University who performed the study, says it is "because the extra material on the head side shifts the center of mass slightly."

[@jaapsch2]

@@lateralcast Hmm, I guess I'm wrong about this then. I think I read it in one of Martin Gardner's books. He was good friends with Diaconis, so maybe the explanation I read was not the final one.

[@jaapsch2]

Persi talks about it in a Numberphile video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZPKaH2GmZuWo9k He implies but doesn't quite say outright that it is to do with the edge.