Buffon's Needle Experiment for Three Types of Grids
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Buffon's needle problem is one of the oldest problems in the theory of geometric probability. It was first introduced and solved by Buffon in 1777, and involves dropping a needle of length at random on a plane grid of parallel lines of distance
units apart and determining the probability of the needle crossing one of the lines. The desired probability is directly related to the value of
, which can then be estimated by Monte Carlo experiments. Three main factors influence these experiments: grid shape, grid density, and needle length. In statistical literature, several experiments depending on these factors have been designed to increase the efficiency of the estimators of
and to use all the information as fully as possible.
Contributed by: Enis Siniksaran (January 2012)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
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[1] E. Siniksaran, "Throwing Buffon's Needle with Mathematica," The Mathematica Journal, 11(1), 2008 pp. 71–90. www.mathematica-journal.com/issue/v11i1/BuffonsNeedle.html.
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