I had given Kaleb three quarters after noticing that he was intrigued with the way either heads or tails would land up in a random way after a toss.  For a moment he believed that the occurrence of heads or tails depended upon what he was mentally picturing. He believed that this was simply “the force” at work. At one point he was even about to convince me.

 “It’s going to be heads this time,” he predicted. It was heads.

“It’s going to be heads this time,” he repeated. Again it was heads.

“It’s going to be heads this time,” again he said. Once more, it was heads.

After doing this five times in a row, I started to look more carefully being incredulous that the coin could keep coming up heads time after time. After nine tosses he got it right every time, and I started believing that he had a trick quarter. Maybe I should not have checked, but I did. It was a real quarter. His guess was wrong on the next toss. Had I erroneously taught him that the force was not an option?

Return to Top