How to similuate a coin flip with probablility p
99 views (last 30 days)
Show older comments
How do I simulate getting a result, either 0 or 1, with probability p. So if p=0.5 I should get an output of 0 half of the time, and 1 half of the time.
1 Comment
Accepted Answer
Wayne King
on 9 Nov 2011
100 tosses with p=0.5.
x = round(rand(100,1));
If you want a probability other than p=0.5, then realize that rand() is uniform random number generator between [0,1], so you can assign the output of rand() accordingly. For example, for p=0.25:
y = zeros(100,1);
x = rand(100,1);
y(x<0.25) = 1;
Or if you just want to simulate the number of 0's or 1's in a certain number of trials. Say 100 for example. Here is a simulation of ten such experiments. Requires Statistics Toolbox.
R = binornd(100,0.5,10,1);
0 Comments
More Answers (3)
Nick
on 9 Nov 2011
Alternatively you could use the randi function in MATLAB which generates random integers.
100 tosses with 0=heads, 1=tails
coin=randi([0:1], [100,1])
It should more or less give you 50 0's and 50 1's.
If there is more than 2 possible outcomes and they all occur with the same probability then just increase the integer range of the randi function.
4 Comments
Image Analyst
on 13 Nov 2021
Edited: Image Analyst
on 13 Nov 2021
@Evangelia Lo, if you have the Image Processing Toolbox you can use bwareafilt() to extract runs of only the length you want and then bwlabel() or regionprops() to count them. If you want to find the index where each run starts, use regionprops():
coins = logical(randi([0, 1], 1, 30000)); % 30,000 coins
patternLength = 10; % Whatever you want
% Throw out all regions that don't match the length we want using bwareafilt(). Need to invert.
coins2 = bwareafilt(~coins, [patternLength, patternLength]);
% Count them
props = regionprops(coins2, 'PixelIdxList');
numPatternOccurrences = numel(props)
% For fun, find out where they occur.
indexes = vertcat(props.PixelIdxList); % All 10 indexes in a run
startingIndex = indexes(1 : patternLength : end) % Just the starting index.
Cory London
on 15 Nov 2018
This code is easily minupulated and works pretty well
Ntoss = 100;
x = rand(1, Ntoss); % what is the resulting size of x?
toss = (x < 0.5);
1 Comment
SARATHRAJ V
on 20 Feb 2021
Ntoss = 100; x = rand(1, Ntoss); % what is the resulting size of x? toss = (x < 0.5);
0 Comments
See Also
Categories
Find more on Random Number Generation in Help Center and File Exchange
Community Treasure Hunt
Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!
Start Hunting!