Buffon's Needle
This applet provides a simulation of a needle of length 1
being dropped on a floor covered with boards of width 1.
Sometimes the needle will land completely on one board, while
other times it will cross over the joint between two boards.
The needle is assumed to be dropped "at random". This is interpreted
to mean that the location of the center of the needle (taken with
respect to the "lower" board) is a uniform [0,1] random variable, and
that the angle the needle makes with the horizontal is uniformly
distributed on [0,Pi]. If X represents the ratio of
crossings to attempts, then 2/X should approach a familiar
number.
Reference:
Buffon's needle is discussed in many probability texts. One is
Richard W. Hamming, The Art of Probability for Scientists and
Engineers Addison-Wesley, 1991
Source Code
This applet uses the Danby package in additon to the following
java files: