Ha! I bet you think this thread is about biasing with resistors.
Nope.
I've been spending the day soldering a whole ton of 0603 resistors. They have two sides: the top side which is black, and the bottom side which is white. Call it heads and tails.
Granted, the resistors work regardless if they're installed heads up or down, but I am OCD about component orientation, so I always place them heads up.
I usually dump a quantity of parts on the work surface. Some land heads up, some land heads down. I group them according to up or down.
Then I press my finger (they stick) onto the down ones, and drop them. Again, some up, some down. I do this till they are all heads up.
What I notice (and this is an anecdotal observation), the 0603 package seems to have a bias to landing heads down, and it is annoying. I wonder why this is? (Actually, it could be that head-down annoys me so much that I "notice" it more).
In any case, this made me think of a probability problem (@WBahn, maybe you're interested in playing with this):
Take n coins. Assume P(0.5) when tossed (no bias). Re-toss all heads-down (as a group) until only heads-up remain.
What is the average number of tosses required until all coins are heads up, and what does the distribution look like?
Theoretically, the problem could take an infinite number of tosses (i.e. the last coin never lands heads up), or only one toss. In reality, the problem usually quickly resolves in a few tosses. O(log(n)) I suspect.
Have fun.
Nope.
I've been spending the day soldering a whole ton of 0603 resistors. They have two sides: the top side which is black, and the bottom side which is white. Call it heads and tails.
Granted, the resistors work regardless if they're installed heads up or down, but I am OCD about component orientation, so I always place them heads up.
I usually dump a quantity of parts on the work surface. Some land heads up, some land heads down. I group them according to up or down.
Then I press my finger (they stick) onto the down ones, and drop them. Again, some up, some down. I do this till they are all heads up.
What I notice (and this is an anecdotal observation), the 0603 package seems to have a bias to landing heads down, and it is annoying. I wonder why this is? (Actually, it could be that head-down annoys me so much that I "notice" it more).
In any case, this made me think of a probability problem (@WBahn, maybe you're interested in playing with this):
Take n coins. Assume P(0.5) when tossed (no bias). Re-toss all heads-down (as a group) until only heads-up remain.
What is the average number of tosses required until all coins are heads up, and what does the distribution look like?
Theoretically, the problem could take an infinite number of tosses (i.e. the last coin never lands heads up), or only one toss. In reality, the problem usually quickly resolves in a few tosses. O(log(n)) I suspect.
Have fun.