Buffon Trial Data

The table below gives 104 repititions of Buffon's needle experiment, with the needle length and floorboard length equal. The common length was about 6.5 cm; a toothpick actually served as the needle. The data should also represent 104 Bernoulli trials. The number of successes is 56.

Data

Trial	Outcome
1	1
2	1
3	1
4	0
5	1
6	1
7	0
8	0
9	1
10	0
11	0
12	1
13	1
14	0
15	0
16	0
17	0
18	1
19	0
20	0
21	1
22	1
23	1
24	1
25	1
26	1
27	0
28	0
29	1
30	1
31	1
32	1
33	1
34	1
35	1
36	0
37	0
38	0
39	1
40	1
41	1
42	1
43	0
44	0
45	0
46	1
47	1
48	1
49	0
50	1
51	1
52	1
53	0
54	0
55	1
56	0
57	1
58	0
59	0
60	0
61	1
62	0
63	0
64	1
65	1
66	1
67	0
68	0
69	1
70	1
71	1
72	0
73	0
74	0
75	1
76	1
77	1
78	1
79	0
80	0
81	0
82	1
83	0
84	0
85	0
86	0
87	0
88	1
89	1
90	1
91	0
92	0
93	0
94	1
95	0
96	1
97	0
98	1
99	1
100	0
101	1
102	1
103	1
104	0
Total Crosses	56

Discussion

Since different students took turns tossing the toothpick, and since some of the students were purposely trying to achieve a particular outcome (a crack crossing), the question of interest is whether the data do represent Bernoulli trials.