From Buffon's Needle to Buffon's Noodle

(mbmccoy.dev)

13 points | by _alternator_ 3 days ago ago

2 comments

  • card_zero 2 hours ago

    I'm wary of asking questions (my curiosity is bounded), but what changes if you limit the range of allowed angles to multiples of, say, 10°? How about 90°, does pi go away then?

  • enricozb 2 hours ago

    Pretty neat! However, if you wanted to know the _probability_ of a noodle crossing any line in the long noodle case (L/W > 1), the expression is more complex (and I believe would require an integral) :).

    It's interesting that the number of crossings is independent of whether L/W is less than or greater than 1, but the probability of crossings is equal to 2pi * L/W only in the short case. This makes sense since in the short case the noodle can at most cross a single line.