## Buffon machines

Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , on December 22, 2020 by xi'an

By chance I came across a 2010 paper entitled On Buffon Machines and Numbers by Philippe Flajolet, Maryse Pelletier and Michèle Soria. Which relates to Bernoulli factories, a related riddle, and the recent paper by Luis Mendo I reviewed here. What the authors call a Buffon machine is a device that produces a perfect simulation of a discrete random variable out of a uniform bit generator. Just like (George Louis Leclerc, comte de) Buffon’s needle produces a Bernoulli outcome with success probability π/4. out of a real Uniform over (0,1). Turned into a sequence of Uniform random bits.

“Machines that always halt can only produce Bernoulli distributions whose parameter is a dyadic rational.”

When I first read this sentence it seemed to clash with the earlier riddle, until I realised the later started from a B(p) coin to produce a fair coin, while this paper starts with a fair coin.

The paper hence aims at a version of the Bernoulli factory problem (see Definition 2), although the term is only mentioned at the very end, with the added requirement of simplicity and conciseness translated as a finite expected number of draws and possibly an exponential tail.

It first recalls the (Forsythe–)von Neumann method of generating exponential (and other) variates out of a Uniform generator (see Section IV.2 in Devroye’s generation bible). Expanded into a general algorithm for generating discrete random variables whose pmf’s are related to permutation cardinals,

$\mathbb P(N=n)\propto P_n\lambda^n/n!$

if the Bernoulli generator has probability λ. These include the Poisson and the logarithmic distributions and as a side product Bernoulli distributions with some logarithmic, exponential and trigonometric transforms of λ.

As a side remark, a Bernoulli generator with probability 1/π is derived from Ramanujan identity

$\frac{1}{\pi} = \sum_{n=0}^\infty {2n \choose n}^3 \frac{6n+1}{2^{8n+2}}$

as “a discrete analogue of Buffon’s original. In a neat connection with Mendo’s paper, the authors of this 2010 paper note that Euler’s constant does not appear to be achievable by a Buffon machine.

## Simulating a coin with irrational bias using rational arithmetic

Posted in Books, Statistics with tags , , , , , , on December 17, 2020 by xi'an

An arXived paper by Luis Mendo adresses the issue of simulating coins with irrational probabilities from a fair coin, somehow connected with one of the latest riddles. Where I realised only irrational coins could be simulated in a fixed and finite number of throws! The setting of the paper is however similar to the one of a Bernoulli factory in that an unlimited number of coins can be generated (but it relies on a  fair coin). And the starting point is a series representation of the irrational ζ as a sum of positive and rational terms. As well as an earlier paper by the Warwick team of Łatuszyński et al. (2011). The solution is somewhat anticlimactic in that the successive draws of the fair coin lead to a sequence of intervals with length divided by 2 at each step. And stopping when a certain condition is met, requiring some knowledge on the tail error of the series. The paper shows further that the number of inputs used by its algorithm has an exponential tail. The examples provided therein are Euler’s constant

$\gamma =\frac{1}{2} + \sum_{i=1}^\infty \frac{B(i)}{2i(2i+1)(2i+2)}$

where B(j) is the number of binary digits of j, and π/4 which can be written as an alternating series. An idle question that came to me while reading this paper is the influence of the series chosen to represent the irrational ζ as it seems that a faster decrease in the series should lead to fewer terms being used. However, the number of iterations is a geometric random variable with parameter 1/2, therefore the choice of the series curiously does not matter.

## Bernoulli factory in the Riddler

Posted in Books, Kids, R, Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , on December 1, 2020 by xi'an

“Mathematician John von Neumann is credited with figuring out how to take a p biased coin and “simulate” a fair coin. Simply flip the coin twice. If it comes up heads both times or tails both times, then flip it twice again. Eventually, you’ll get two different flips — either a heads and then a tails, or a tails and then a heads, with each of these two cases equally likely. Once you get two different flips, you can call the second of those flips the outcome of your “simulation.” For any value of p between zero and one, this procedure will always return heads half the time and tails half the time. This is pretty remarkable! But there’s a downside to von Neumann’s approach — you don’t know how long the simulation will last.” The Riddler

The associated riddle (first one of the post-T era!) is to figure out what are the values of p for which an algorithm can be derived for simulating a fair coin in at most three flips. In one single flip, p=½ sounds like the unique solution. For two flips, p²,(1-p)^2,2p(1-p)=½ work, but so do p+(1-p)p,(1-p)+p(1-p)=½, and the number of cases grows for three flips at most. However, since we can have 2³=8 different sequences, there are 2⁸ ways to aggregate these events and thus at most 2⁸ resulting probabilities (including 0 and 1). Running a quick R code and checking for proximity to ½ of any of these sums leads to

[1] 0.2062997 0.7937005 #p^3
[1] 0.2113249 0.7886753 #p^3+(1-p)^3
[1] 0.2281555 0.7718448 #p^3+p(1-p)^2
[1] 0.2372862 0.7627143 #p^3+(1-p)^3+p(1-p)^2
[1] 0.2653019 0.7346988 #p^3+2p(1-p)^2
[1] 0.2928933 0.7071078 #p^2
[1] 0.3154489 0.6845518 #p^3+2p^2(1-p)
[1] 0.352201  0.6477993 #p^3+p(1-p)^2+p^2(1-p)
[1] 0.4030316 0.5969686 #p^3+p(1-p)^2+3(1-p)p^2
[1] 0.5


which correspond to

1-p³=½, p³+(1-p)³=½,(1-p)³+(1-p)p²=½,p³+(1-p)³+p²(1-p),(1-p)³+2(1-p)p²=½,1-p²=½, p³+(1-p)³+p²(1-p)=½,(1-p)³+p(1-p)²+p²(1-p)=½,(1-p)³+p²(1-p)+3p(1-p)²=½,p³+p(1-p)²+3(p²(1-p)=½,p³+2p(1-p)²+3(1-p)p²=½,p=½,

(plus the symmetric ones), leading to 19 different values of p producing a “fair coin”. Missing any other combination?!

Another way to look at the problem is to find all roots of the $2^{2^n}$ equations

$a_0p^n+a_1p^{n-1}(1-p)+\cdots+a_{n-1}p(1-p)^{n-1}+a_n(1-p)^n=1/2$

where

$0\le a_i\le{n \choose i}$

(None of these solutions is rational, by the way, except p=½.) I also tried this route with a slightly longer R code, calling polyroot, and finding the same 19 roots for three flips, [at least] 271 for four, and [at least] 8641 for five (The Riddler says 8635!). With an imprecision in the exact number of roots due to rather poor numerical rounding by polyroot. (Since the coefficients of the above are not directly providing those of the polynomial, I went through an alternate representation as a polynomial in (1-p)/p, with a straightforward derivation of the coefficients.)

## not a Bernoulli factory

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, R with tags , , , , , , , on May 20, 2020 by xi'an

A Riddler riddle I possibly misunderstood:

Four isolated persons are given four fair coins, which can be either flipped once or returned without being flipped. If all flipped coins come up heads, the team wins! Else, if any comes up tails, or if no flip at all is done, it looses. Each person is further given an independent U(0,1) realisation. What is the best strategy?

Since the players are separated, I would presume the same procedure is used by all. Meaning that a coin is tossed with probability p, ie if the uniform is less than p, and untouched otherwise. The probability of winning is then

4(1-p)³p½+6(1-p)³p½²+4(1-p)p³½³+p⁴½⁴

which is maximum for p=0.3420391, with a winning probability of 0.2848424.

solve $$x⌊x⌊x⌊x⌋⌋⌋=2020$$

Where the integral part is the integer immediately below x. Puzzle that I first fail solving by brute force, because I did not look at negative x’s… Since the fourth root of 2020 is between 6 and 7, the solution is either x=6+ε or x=-7+ε, with ε in (0,1). The puzzle then becomes either

$$(6+ε)⌊(6+ε)⌊(6+ε)⌊6+ε⌋⌋⌋ = (6+ε)⌊(6+ε)⌊36+6ε⌋⌋ = (6+ε)⌊(6+ε)(36+⌊6ε⌋)⌋ = 2020$$

where there are 6 possible integer values for $$⌊6ε⌋, with only ⌊6ε⌋=5 being possible, turning the equation into$$

$$(6+ε)⌊41(6+ε)⌋ = (6+ε)(246+⌊41ε⌋) = 2020$$

where again only $$⌊42ε⌋$$=40 being possible, ending up with

$$1716+286ε = 2020$$

which has no solution in (0,1). In the second case

(-7+$$ε$$)$$⌊(-7+ε)⌊(-7+ε)⌊-7+ε⌋⌋⌋$$ = (-7+$$ε$$)$$⌊(-7+ε)(49+⌊-7ε⌋)⌋ = 2020$$

shows that only $$⌊-7ε⌋$$=-3 is possible, leading to

(-7+$$ε$$)$$⌊46(-7+ε))⌋$$ = (-7+$$ε$$) ($$-322+⌊46ε⌋)=2020$$

with only $$⌊46ε⌋$$=17 possible, hence

2135-305$$ε$$=2020

and

$$ε$$=115/305.

A brute force simulated annealing resolution returns x=-6.622706 after 10⁸ iterations. A more interesting question is to figure out the discontinuity points of the function

$$ℵ(x) = x$$$$⌊x⌊x⌊x⌋⌋⌋$$

as they seem to be numerous:

For instance, only 854 of the first 2020 integers enjoy a solution to $$ℵ(x)$$=n.

## another Bernoulli factory

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, R, Statistics with tags , , , , , , on May 18, 2020 by xi'an

A question that came out on X validated is asking for help in figuring out the UMVUE (uniformly minimal variance unbiased estimator) of (1-θ)½ when observing iid Bernoulli B(θ). As it happens, there is no unbiased estimator of this quantity and hence not UMVUE. But there exists a Bernoulli factory producing a coin with probability (1-θ)½ from draws of a coin with probability θ, hence a mean to produce unbiased estimators of this quantity. Although of course UMVUE does not make sense in this sequential framework. While Nacu & Peres (2005) were uncertain there was a Bernoulli factory for θ½, witness their Question #1, Mendo (2018) and Thomas and Blanchet (2018) showed that there does exist a Bernoulli factory solution for θa, 0≤a≤1, with constructive arguments that only require the series expansion of θ½. In my answer to that question, using a straightforward R code, I tested the proposed algorithm, which indeed produces an unbiased estimate of θ½… (Most surprisingly, the question got closed as a “self-study” question, which sounds absurd since it could not occur as an exercise or an exam question, unless the instructor is particularly clueless.)