The Dice Man
Statistics & Probability
Make real decisions by dice roll for a month and use expected value and simulation to see how much of the outcome came from luck versus your own weighting of the options.
Where this idea comes from
Start here — this is the source that inspired this exploration.
Introduction
The 1971 novel The Dice Man imagines a life run entirely by dice: write down several options, roll, and do whatever comes up. Treated as a maths problem, this is decision-making under a controlled random process, and it can be tested rather than just imagined. Assign a probability to each option, run the decisions for real (or simulate many runs), and see how far the outcomes drift from what you would expect by chance alone.
Guiding Questions
- If you made one decision a day by dice roll for a month, what would the range of outcomes look like, and how much of that range is luck rather than choice?
- Assign probabilities to your options and compute the expected outcome for a repeated decision — a meal choice, a route to school, a revision topic.
- Simulate many runs of dice-driven decisions. How much do outcomes vary purely by luck, and how many runs do you need before the average settles down?
- Weight two options 70/30 instead of 50/50. How does the expected outcome change, and how sensitive is it to your choice of weights?