Quote from: CIYAM on March 06, 2015, 07:00:18 PM

Quote from: Bit_Happy on March 06, 2015, 06:57:43 PM

If you "suffer through" an unusually long streak (high wait time for blocks, dice rolls under 7, etc), then at some point you have to get fast blocks or high dice rolls in order for the stats to normalize. Is it accurate to say the dice have long-term memory?

Not according to the laws of math (i.e. a random number generator could produce a number < X for years without being flawed).

Again the "difficulty adjustment" is used to "try and fix" this sort of problem (in terms of adjusting based upon the history).

Quote from: odolvlobo on March 06, 2015, 11:06:25 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on March 06, 2015, 06:48:28 PM

For every block that takes an hour, there should be one that takes a few seconds.

Quote from: Bit_Happy on March 06, 2015, 06:57:43 PM

True, but...
If you "suffer through" an unusually long streak (high wait time for blocks, dice rolls under 7, etc), then at some point you have to get fast blocks or high dice rolls in order for the stats to normalize. Is it accurate to say the dice have long-term memory?

The average time between blocks has been about 10 minutes. There is no mechanism to guarantee that the future average time between blocks will be 10 minutes. However unlikely it might be, the average time between the 2016 blocks in a difficulty period could be 1 hour or 30 seconds. If the first 1008 blocks averaged 20 minutes each, there is nothing that will make the last 1008 blocks average 0 minutes in order to maintain the expected 10 minute average. Statistics describing the past can be extrapolated in order to predict the future, but they can't affect the future.

FYI This is related to the fallacy of the concept of "reversion to the mean".

This is interesting. I have done some reading up on 'reversion to the mean' as I've never heard of the term.

To me, my thinking was along the lines to Bit_Happy. That is, if there is an average x, and for years the number produced is < x, then there needs to be a period where for years the number produced has to be > x, in order for that average to stand.

Am i understanding the fallacy of the reversion to the mean correctly - the above is not necessary the case?