THE CALTON BOARD: LIMIT THEOREMS AND RECURRENCE

摘要

The Calton board [21, Chapter V], also known as the quincunx or bean machine,is one of the simplest mechanical devices exhibiting stochastic behavior. It consistsof a vertical (or inclined) board with interleaved rows of pegs. A ball thrown intothe Galton board moves under gravitation and bounces off the pegs on its waydown. If many balls are thrown into the quincunx, then one can observe a normaldistribution of balls coming to rest on the machine floor.