

Bayes' Theorem with Lego - CountBayesie
http://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2015/2/18/bayes-theorem-with-lego

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ygra
Dear people who write math: Don't write text as-is in math mode. Either use
\mathrm/\mathit (for LaTeX) or "" (for Word) to prevent random text being
interpreted (and typeset as) variables adjacent to each other. The spacing for
$numberOfYellowPegs$ is particularly horrifying.

~~~
JadeNB
> use \mathrm/\mathit (for LaTeX)

Even better, use `\text`, which re-sizes properly.

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ibebrett
I think it should be pointed out that bayesian's believe bayes theorem as a
statement about plausibility of statements, so intuitions about an event space
(which are obvious statements about sets) don't carry over to the general
case.

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rndn
Do you (or someone else) happen to know of a good introduction into Bayesian's
intuition about the plausibility of statements?

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tmoertel
The best reference is Jaynes's _Probability Theory: The Logic of Science_. The
first three chapters are online for free and explain the development of
probability theory as a logic for plausible reasoning [1]. If you want to get
a quick taste, I wrote a short blog post that introduces the theory while
working through an interesting coin-toss problem [2].

[1]
[http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf](http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf)

[2] [http://blog.moertel.com/posts/2010-12-20-more-on-the-
evidenc...](http://blog.moertel.com/posts/2010-12-20-more-on-the-evidence-of-
a-single-coin-toss.html)

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ibebrett
If you hadn't beat me to it, this is exactly what I would have suggested

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noelwelsh
Great article, but really it's the pun in the name that made it for me. Good
job, Count.

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CountBayesie
I'm a lover of awful puns, and was actually surprised how few people I knew
got it! I'm very glad you appreciate it, thanks!

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octatoan
Jazz and math. Ah. What more could one ask for?

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jessaustin
I think this:

 _Great, we have arrived at the conditional probability of red given yellow!_

...should have "red" and "yellow" switched. It's kind of confusing otherwise.

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CountBayesie
Thanks for the catch! It should be corrected now

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tragomaskhalos
I often break out the lego when helping the kids with their maths homework -
it really helps with visualisations and spatial reasoning.

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balazsdavid987
Great work! Recently I've been contemplating the idea of starting a blog that
explains math concepts using LEGO bricks, this post gave me faith that there
will be some interest in such a thing!

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beloch
Reading this makes me wish my math profs had played with lego during class.

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johnloeber
That's quite nice; well done. The Lego definitely helps communicate intuition.
I also like how you're very thorough in the computations -- it makes a good
introduction.

