Some of you know I teach a stats class for bio majors. Some semesters it's my favorite class, because I love stats and I think it's fun to teach. (Some semesters the students are sufficiently resistant to the charms of applied math to make the class feel like a chore).
Anyway, today I was discussing probabilities, and going through the approximation-of-a-normal curve example, using classical probability and dice: how if you plot the frequency diagram for results from throwing one die, you get a uniform distribution..and if you throw two dice, you get a range from 2 through 12, where each outcome has different frequency (and therefore, different probability). After drawing the diagrams of the two sets of outcomes on the board, I mentioned that "You can keep doing this...keep adding factors that contribute to the outcome...and get even closer to a normal curve, for example, you could throw three dice, or more..."
And one of the guys in the back row called out "Yahtzee!"
Heh.
(This is also the class where, when I was going over the Latin Square experimental design, one student said, "Oh, it's like Sudoku!")
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