probability- sum of 2 cubes

[Mapisto]

Hi guys,

I'm new here and new to Java (and pretty much to programming as a whole :) )
I've started studying Software Engineering, and got HW from the beginnners-JAVA course.

So, I've made the program, and in 1 section of it, I was asked to make the program print the probability of different sums when randomaly throwing cubes.
I've used Monte Carlo for it, and got the following results:

The results are:
the probability to get a sum of 1 is: 0
the probability to get a sum of 2 is: 0.028
the probability to get a sum of 3 is: 0.083
the probability to get a sum of 4 is: 0.167
the probability to get a sum of 5 is: 0.278
the probability to get a sum of 6 is: 0.417

Well, somehow I'm not sure i've done it right and those numbers doesn't seem so accurate to me... that's coz the sum of those probabilities covers almost 100% when there are 6 other options with high probabilities (like 7= 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 2+5 etc...).

I've added that part of the code so that you can see what I've done:

case '2' : {
final int trials_number = 10000000;
Integer cube_1 = null;
Integer cube_2 = null;
Integer sum = null;
Integer sum_eq_1 = 0;
Integer sum_eq_2 = 0;
Integer sum_eq_3 = 0;
Integer sum_eq_4 = 0;
Integer sum_eq_5 = 0;
Integer sum_eq_6 = 0;

for (int i = 0 ; i < trials_number; i++) {
cube_1 = (int)(Math.random()*6+1);
cube_2 = (int)(Math.random()*6+1);
sum = (cube_1+cube_2);
switch (sum) {
case 1 : sum_eq_1++;
case 2 : sum_eq_2++;
case 3 : sum_eq_3++;
case 4 : sum_eq_4++;
case 5 : sum_eq_5++;
case 6 : sum_eq_6++;
}

}
DecimalFormat fmt = new DecimalFormat ("0.###");
System.out.println("The results are:");
System.out.println("the probability to get a sum of 1 is: " + fmt.format((double)sum_eq_1/trials_number));
System.out.println("the probability to get a sum of 2 is: " + fmt.format((double)sum_eq_2/trials_number));
System.out.println("the probability to get a sum of 3 is: " + fmt.format((double)sum_eq_3/trials_number));
System.out.println("the probability to get a sum of 4 is: " + fmt.format((double)sum_eq_4/trials_number));
System.out.println("the probability to get a sum of 5 is: " + fmt.format((double)sum_eq_5/trials_number));
System.out.println("the probability to get a sum of 6 is: " + fmt.format((double)sum_eq_6/trials_number) + "\n");
}
break;


Thanks a lot!!
Mapisto.

[JosAH]

Your switch statement only cares for the sums 1 ... 6 and ignores the sums 7 ... 12.

kind regards,

Jos

[Mapisto]

Tnx for ur answer,

I was asked to present only the 1-6 sums.

but my question was about the values i've got. they seem strange, don't they ?

[JosAH]

but my question was about the values i've got. they seem strange, don't they ?

Not really because in Java (and C and C++ and a few more languages) the case clauses 'fall though'; i.e. when the last statement of a case statement has finished the first statement of the next case clause (if any) executes, unless you add a break statement after each case clause.

kind regards,

Jos

[Mapisto]

Oh hell, u're right :|

I forgot the breaks! :|

Tnx man! I believe now it should work fine :)

[Mapisto]

I've got another question about this 1.
I've used decimalformat so that i'll have 3 numbers after the point.
In every1 all was fine, except zero. i know it sounds dumb, but i need it to print "0.000". how can i do it?

tnx!

[pbrockway2]

but i need it to print "0.000"

The thing to do in cases like these - where you can't figure out how to get the behaviour you want - is to read the DecimalFormat API docs. The relevant bit seems to be: 0 means digit, # means digit (zero shows as absent).

You don't want zero to show as absent (*), so try the other option:

DecimalFormat fmt = new DecimalFormat ("0.000"); // try with zero, but also other integral values like 42

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(*) Perhaps it's just me, but I don't find the documentation all that clear in this case. Especially this "show as absent". Wtf: a thing EITHER shows OR it is absent.