Monday, February 25, 2013

Pitch-and-Toss

Look close. Coins have done their worst. Scores of drivers, admonished to "Stay in Vehicle", have tossed their coins into this Florida Greenway tollbooth. They have aimed for the bin and hit the backstop: the sign. Examine the coins' dings and marks near the bottom of the "Vehicle" sign. If the sign extended lower we would probably see a near circular scatterplot pattern of marks, the results of targeted tosses that have missed in various ways: off target left or right or up or down. As it is, the close-up below shows that the sign retains the marks of the top half of the scatterplot target. The drivers' coins seem aimed just below the "C", not full center. Perhaps slight bias is aided by the forward motion of cars, not fully stopped, to pay the toll.

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