Unbiased Coin Tossing With a Biased Coin

Speaker: 

Time: 

Friday, 4 May 2012, 15:00 to 16:30

Venue: 

  • A-212 (STCS Seminar Room)

Organisers: 

I will discuss some algorithms for simulating a flip of an unbiased coin by flipping a coin of unknown bias. We will discuss efficiency of several algorithms, where the expected number of flips is our measure of efficiency. We will also outline the proof of a conjecture by Hoeffding and Simons that there is no optimal algorithm.