written by Wolfgang Christian
content provider: Anne Cox

A Galton board is a vertical board with n rows of pegs onto which a ball is dropped.   Each time a ball hits a peg, it has a probability p of bouncing to the left and a probability of 1-p of bouncing to the right. The simulation's histogram shows the distribution of x-coordinates as the balls leave the board and are collected into bins.
The simulation gives rise to the binomial distribution if the probabilities of left and right bounces are equal. At first there does not seem to be any pattern but after many trials the familiar "bell curve" shape begins to emerge.

• Download ejs_stp_GaltonBoard.jar - 1774kb Java Archive File

Last Modified June 6, 2014

This file has previous versions.

The source code zip archive contains an XML representation of the Galton Board Model.  Unzip this archive in your EJS workspace to compile and run this model using EJS.

• Download ejs_stp_GaltonBoard.zip - 11kb Compressed File

Published February 24, 2009
Last Modified June 6, 2014

This file has previous versions.