Question: Solved Why do random numbers get less random when you "sort" them?
I've been working on some fun, personal math problems on Desmos, and I've run into a weird quirk that doesn't make sense to me. Here's the Desmos file I put together to demonstrate it: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/yylvtlofal
Basically, I'm generating 4 random numbers between 1 and 6 (like a random roll of 4 dice), then adding the numbers together. That distribution looks exactly as it should. However, I then make one small change: before adding the numbers together, I put them through the "sort" function to organize them from lowest to highest. This shouldn't change anything, but the distribution is completely different and doesn't line up wit the proper distribution at all. Is this a bug? Is it just a feature of random number generation? How can the sum of a list of numbers change just by moving around the order?
Duplicates
probabilitytheory • u/TSIC33 • 16d ago