Bayes' Theorem with Lego

Bayes' Theorem with Lego(countbayesie.com)

140 points by CountBayesie 11 years ago | 17 comments

ygra 11 years ago |

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 11 years ago | |

> use \mathrm/\mathit (for LaTeX)

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

ibebrett 11 years ago |

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.

rndn 11 years ago | |

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

tmoertel 11 years ago | | |

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

[2] http://blog.moertel.com/posts/2010-12-20-more-on-the-evidenc...

pdkl95 11 years ago | | |

http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/03/11/frequentism-and-bay...

This a very good 4 part series on the subject, with a focus (esp. in part 3) on how this affects scientific statements.

noelwelsh 11 years ago |

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

CountBayesie 11 years ago | |

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!

octatoan 11 years ago | | |

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

gadders 11 years ago | |

Agreed. I just came here to complement the URL.

jessaustin 11 years ago |

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.

CountBayesie 11 years ago | |

Thanks for the catch! It should be corrected now

tragomaskhalos 11 years ago |

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

balazsdavid987 11 years ago |

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!

beloch 11 years ago |

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

johnloeber 11 years ago |

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.