Next: The mathematical secrets of Pascal’s triangle and the Tippe Top, and the Pythagorean theorem water demo. You may use any positive whole number for those 2 values.

15 is the number of levels (height) of the board and 200 is the number of balls that would be used for the simulation. The importance of the normal curve stems primarily from the. Once you are in that folder, copy and paste python galton.py 15 200 command into the Command Prompt. Get your own Galton Board on Grand Illusions or at Amazon. The normal (gaussian) distribution is the most common type of distribution found in statistics. We also get a close up look at the Pascal’s Triangle thats printed on it. In the video above, Grand Illusions‘ Tim Rowett demonstrates this delightful mathematical model by Four Pines Publishing. Each ball has a 50/50 chance of following each branch such that the balls are distributed at the bottom by the mathematical binomial distribution. Invented by multi-hyphenate statistician Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), this ‘bean machine’ is the basis for games like Peggle, Plinko, and Pachinko. The Galton Board: 3000 steel balls fall through 12 levels of branching paths and always end up matching a bell curve distribution. This hands-on Galton Board allows you to visualize the order embedded in the chaos of randomness.”

“As the beads accumulate in the bins, they approximate the bell curve, as shown by the yellow line on the front of the Galton board.

As you rotate the Galton Board on its axis, you set into motion a flow of steel beads that bounce with equal probability to the left or right through several rows of pegs. “This delightful little device brings to life the statistical concept of normal distribution.