Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Marbles

A Strange Bucket

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:39:58 -0800

I have a bucket containing N marbles: M white marbles and N-M black marbles. I need to grab a handful of marbles (n) and figure out the probability of having picked up m white marbles. At first, I thought I could use the hypergeometric distribution. But there's a complication, namely that the white marbles are not equally distributed in my bucket.

In other words, if my handful of marbles contains one white marble, I'm more likely to have picked up one or more additional white marbles in my hand, and this probability is different depending on how many white marbles I may have picked up.

Is there a good approach to modeling or simulating this kind of situation?

Mountain Marbles

Tube — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:40:02 -0800

Has anyone here heard of "Mountain Marbles"? I discovered this term in an issue of Mechanix Illustrated magazine from 1965. I've posted a photograph of the passage on Flickr here.

I'm curious if anyone has heard of using flowing water to "machine" a small stone into a sphere. I've read some of the Foxfire series books, and the Whole Earth Catalog, but I don't recall seeing anything about this. From the text I gather this is an Appalachian craft. Everything I know about this subject is what I've read in this tantalizing passage. Is it possible to create a stone sphere regular enough to actually play marbles with? Has anyone here done this, or even read about it elsewhere?

Perhaps Frank Wynne was pulling our leg...

Marble Run display in NYC

dog food sugar — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 19:46:09 -0800

NYC Transit users: Do you know where the Marble Run display is? Ever since this question was posted, I've been trying to remember a marble run that I saw in February of 2005 somewhere in the Subway system. Maybe it was at a station that transfers to commuter rails? I can't remember and it's driving me pointlessly mad!

The marble run was lovely: lots of metal parts, and it was large (maybe 12' x 12' x 12'). It looked like a permanent display behind plexiglas. Is there any information online about this beautiful creature?

Take the marbles out, dear

dong_resin — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:10:50 -0800

What is this song (252 kb mp3), and who is it by, please? "--Commander Adama /pictures of our rules are havlen-blargle / boarder a white whos/ I use a yugo/ wooooon't you layup a heavy dame / worn blarg won't waiiiiiiiit/ icy form blorg aaaah get washed awwwwway--"

I swear I'm not mocking the handicapped, as far as I know.