Coin flipping among the strangest research topics

The Ignobel Prize is an annual scientific award given by scientific humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research, which has been awarded to funny or astonishing studies since 1991. Its aim is to reward research that first makes you laugh but then makes you think. Another stipulation for applicants is that they should only research a topic that has not been studied before.

One of this year’s winners in the “probability” category was an international research team, led by František Bartoš from the University of Amsterdam, that included Balázs Aczél (professor at ELTE PPK) and Miklós Bognár (lecturer at ELTE PPK) as members from Hungary. In their research, they tested a theory proposed by American mathematician Persi Diaconis in 2007, according to which a tossed coin will land on the same side from which it started 51% of the time. The study involved 350,757 coin flips and the researchers documented the state before and after each toss. The results confirmed Diaconis’s claims: the coin is indeed more likely (in 50.8% of the cases, to be exact) to fall on its starting side than on the other side. The researchers from ELTE developed an experimental software for the study, which allowed participants to record the results of the coin toss more easily.

Apart from begin funny, the research shows that even those theories that are the most difficult to prove can actually be tested through large research collaborations and non-traditional methods of analysis.

To watch the award ceremony, which was as unusual as the prize itself, click here.