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Buffon's Needle - Calculus Introduction

Approaches problem from a calculus viewpoint where the goal is to estimate the probability of a needle of fixed length to land on a line of equally spaced parallel lines. Explanation of the change to the probability as the length of the needle is less than, equal to, and greater than the distance between lines is given. An applet linked on the right hand side, illustrates the estimate of \(\pi\) based \(n\) tosses of a needle.
Identifier: 
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BuffonsNeedleProblem.html
Rating: 
Average: 3 (257 votes)
Creator(s): 
Wolfram MathWorld
Cataloger: 
Carolyn Cuff
Publisher: 
Wolfram Research, Inc.
Rights: 
2011 Wolfram Alpha LLC—A Wolfram Research Company