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ERIC Number: EJ960986
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Sep
Pages: 5
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0746-8342
EISSN: N/A
An Empirical Approach to the St. Petersburg Paradox
Klyve, Dominic; Lauren, Anna
College Mathematics Journal, v42 n4 p260-264 Sep 2011
The St. Petersburg game is a probabilistic thought experiment. It describes a game which seems to have infinite expected value, but which no reasonable person could be expected to pay much to play. Previous empirical work has centered around trying to find the most likely payoff that would result from playing the game n times. In this paper, we extend this work to the distribution of all possible values which could result from this experiment. We use this distribution--with a surprising fractal-like pattern--to examine the unlikely nature of the most famous experiment on this game, the results of the Compte de Buffon's playing the game 2048 times.
Mathematical Association of America. 1529 Eighteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-741-9415; Tel: 202-387-5200; Fax: 202-387-1208; e-mail: maahq@maa.org; Web site: http://www.maa.org/pubs/cmj.html
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A