Talk:Dice/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Clockwise faces - image-text discrepancy

In the description it says that most dices have 1, 2, 3 in clockwise direction; do I see it correctly that this is not the case for both the dices in the picture? Bob.v.R 22:39, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree, Bob: the sequence from 1 to 2 to 3, on the die showing those faces, is a counter-clockwise sequence around their common vertex, contrary to what i consider the logical meaning of the article's wording. (And the corresponding sequence from 6 to 5 to 4, being clockwise around their common vertex, implies counter-clockwise when viewed toward the common vertex of 1,2, and 3.) Flipping the graphic could explain it for the top-of-page picture, but lettering in one photo establishes that at least that one shows several dice that are counter-clockwise from 1 to 3.

I've IDed an editor who added that info, and hope for clarification of the basis for it. --Jerzy(t) 03:06, 2004 May 22 (UTC)

Ancient roman dice do not follow this pattern - Octane818

Polyhedral dice sections

The 2 sections on polyhedral dice should be merged; the information is mostly redundant. However, I am not sure not to go about doing so. 70.160.230.135 15:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Unicode

The unicode doesn't work for me. Wouter Lievens 08:48, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

D3 and D5

I noticed that under the section rarer sided dice, there's no d3 or d5 listed. They do exist though. They can be found at http://www.gamescience.com/ The only downside is that they make the d3 with R, P and S (Rock, Paper, Scissors)on them.

It looks as if one version of d5 is a triangular prism; this must be very difficult to make each face equally likely since some are triangles and others rectangles. The d3s do not have plane faces - otherwise a d1 (e.g. a sphere) and d2 (e.g. an intersection of two equal spheres, or a coin) would also be possible. --Henrygb 15:37, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Funny you should mention that, as when (pre-d20) D&D rules call for a d2, a coin is exactly what many players I know use. Well, ok, mostly just me. Annoys the hell out of the others actually. But it is a nickname for it. ----oknazevad 23:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

3 and 5 sided dice do exist, as well as do 2-sided dice which are designed to be 2-sided dice. You can see them at www.dicecollector.com. Razor Rozar7 (talk) 18:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Holding Pen

Misplaced (and removed by me) in the lead 'graph:

probably from the Latin dare: to give

Probably best in history section if not omitted.
--Jerzy~t 15:25 & 20:24, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

This is off-topic:

*diceware — use of dice to generate high security passwords

My guess is that Diceware can become a useful article. But quality aside, it adds little but distraction to the dice article, since (even if the topic deserves an article) it is a very minor use for dice.

Matchbook doesn't need a lk to info on how to use a matchbook (or, ideally, two) to stop the rocking of a piece of furniture with a leg that doesn't quite reach the floor. Likewise, if Diceware survives as an article, it should not be articles on random number generation, but those on security, that keep it from being an orphan. (Using random numbers, with whatever source, is not unusual in programs; Donald Knuth is supposed to have said "Every good program should involve a random number generator.") Even if diceware is notable, it is not notable in the context of dice.
--Jerzy•t 22:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

My rewrite

I summarized my edit (of the lead, before the first hdg) as

rewrite for many reasons

forgetting that section-edits of the lead are not distinguishable from edits of the whole article via their default summaries. That edit did not stray beyond the lead (if only bcz it could not): i did not make a rewrite of the article (nor do i intend to!), although it looks like i left nothing longer than "used to produce other random results" unchanged in the lead.
--Jerzy~t 21:59, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Slang

The following:

== Slang ==

Dice is also related to the slang term of yahtzee.

moved here bz while the grammar is perfect, "related to the slang term of" is a construction that will leave typical native speakers scratching their heads. Is this trying to say anything worth saying? Does someone consider the trademark "Yahtzee" to be slang?
--Jerzy•t 17:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Inking

The article mentions that some dice had to be hand-inked. That may be so, although my memory is of dice where the numbers were cut out and a crayon was used to leave wax in the grooves thus making the numbers more visible. Many of the dice pictured look like that actually. I don't have anything I can cite to for this practice, however. Шизомби 01:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Title

Is there a reason why this article is called Dice, the plural form instead of Die, the singular term? I don't know if there is a official standing on this, but most articles seem to take the singular term, like Tree, Pillow, Male. Shouldn't the article be called Die? DaftPenguu 22:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Normally, policy dictates that singulars should be used. However, "dice" is a special case. Huge numbers of people (probably the majority) use it as the singular, and make the plural either invariable ("dice") or regular ("dices"). Use of the plural "dice" also has the advantage of being unambiguous. That is to say, if we wanted to call it "die", we would have to put "(gambling object)" or some such nonsense in to distinguish it from the other meanings of the word "die". — Gulliver ✉ 07:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Commons

I've noticed a huge amount of material on the Commons (Commons:Dice) which would look really cool if we could work it into the article. — Gulliver ✉ 07:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

d50 ?

Are you sure d50 is icosakaipentagonal dipyramid ? Because i never found any information about it. Just d48 wich is a Disdyakis dodecahedron. --R2cyberpunk 18:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

d4

I added a link to Daldøs, a Danish/Norwegian game where 4-sided rolling pins are used. I think they are rather unique (except for their use in a related Sami game, Sahkku, as mentioned in the Daldøs article). They roll much better than a tetrahedron. However, perhaps they should be mentioned under "Rarer variations" instead, a table line e.g. reading "d4", "Square prism", "Rolling pin used in the games Daldøs and Sáhkku". (The article on sahkku has not been written yet.)--Niels Ø 15:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's fine where it is now, as it fits nicely within the paragraph. I've changed the sentence so the name of the game is in the text. Graham talk 05:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort, here and in Daldøs.--Niels Ø 08:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Probability graph

The graph in the section on the probability of a particular combo on 2 dice is in conflict with the chart. As far as I know, the chart is correct, and the graph is in error. I'll try to fix it, but I make no promises, mostly because I'm a hack at computer graphics. oknazevad 23:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

"Dices"

The OED doesn't show "dices" in use since 1750. I think it's safe to say that "dices" is not just being suppressed by prescriptivists — it's just not being used anymore. Do we need this bizarre rant about prescriptivism in the lead of the article? —ptk✰fgs 14:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

okay, a google search really rolls this one out:

*"one die": 655,000

*"one dice": 46,900

• "two dice": 274,000
• "two dices": 805

I'm doing a combination rewrite-revert on this edit. —ptk✰fgs 14:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree about "dices"; I conservatively left the claim that it's sometimes used from the previous version of the page, as I didn't have enough information to be sure it wasn't true. Personally I've never heard it. By all means move the bizarre rant somewhere else; there was previously an equally bizarre rant about usage in the same place, but less well informed and mixed up with the following paragraph, about shape and design.

And, er, the Google results for "one die" are totally specious. From the first page of results: "Can one die from a broken heart?", "Twenty-one die in military transport plane crash", "Air Force One die-cast airport", "One die-hard Red Sox fan", etc. Whereas OED confirms that "The form dice (used as pl. and sing.) is of much more frequent occurrence in gaming and related senses than the singular die." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.6.99.21 (talk • contribs) .

I think the way it's handled right now makes sense; I've just described the usage of the word, based on the OED and google searches. We don't need to say whether it's correct or incorrect. I've split the second half of that paragraph off; I think you're right and it makes more sense not to have them smooshed together.

• "roll one die": 21,300
• "roll one dice": 455

I'm still just not seeing where people are using "dice" as a singular. At best it's "uncommon". —ptk✰fgs 15:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes but "roll a dice" 41,200. Besides, as noted above, I was echoing the OED's assertion that it's "much more frequent", as well as its information about the variant OF form dez. But as you obviously know better, I give up.

...And "roll a die" with 70,300 —ptk✰fgs 15:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

A lot of people in my area tend to use "dice" as singular, but I was always told "die" is singular. I guess more people know what you're talking about if you say "a dice" rather than "a die." Razor Rozar7 (talk) 18:49, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Jargon

I've just done an editing pass to try to reword passages in dice notation. Many contributors to this page are probably comfortable with dice notation. Please do not assume that readers are, however, and avoid its use where it is not necessary to convey the point at hand. Unnecessary use of jargon is never good style. -Stellmach 00:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Note: This article has a very small number of in-line citations for an article of its size and currently would not pass criteria 2b.
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 21:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Congruent sides is not enough

In the section on non-cubical dice, the fact that sides are congruent is mentioned. E.g. playing with Jovo, it is obvious that one may produce many polyhedrons out of identical triangles or squares, that would not be fair dice! In some of these, the faces, though congruent, are not symmetrically equivalent. In some, though the sides are symmetrically equivalent, the polyhedron is not convex but concave. So how is this expressed in a succinc and accessible way? I suspect all these unacceptable polyhedrons are in fact concave, but I am not sure.--Niels Ø 09:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Sperical Dice

i have a dice that is a sphere, it works just like a normal dice and seems to be prefectly random. does anyone know how this works so it can be added in?Daniel625 21:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought we already had a section describing how a spherical die works. —ptk✰fgs 00:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The description of a spherical die is under one of the pictures.Rekov (talk) 00:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Cheat dice (see below)

"Cheat dice (see below) are often sold as loaded dice but usually are not technically loaded."

Wtf, see below. Very unprofessional here. Cheat dice actually need to be defined under their heading - not refer to some nebulous "below" area. Fresheneesz 01:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

needs external links (see below) where to buy them etc. 206.23.102.10 18:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Links

I added a link to http://www.jasonholm.com/random_numbers.html Jsholm 15:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Scatter dice

Added a few words to the entry - call me Mr Picky, but there is still almost always a 1/6 chance that you go by the symbol on the die, in the case that there is a "Hit" or other success, and scatter is not used. Slavedriver 18:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ancient 18-sided Chinese dice

At [1], one can read about ancient 18-sided Chinese dice used for the game Liubo. I think it deserves a mention in this article (and perhaps in the article on Liubo too). - Is this internet source a good one?--Niels Ø (noe) 18:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Whole Article

It seems to me that this page has a lot of repetition, perhaps some should be removed? --jazzle 08:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Singular Spelling

I thought it was di. 67.188.172.165 04:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The singular of "dice" is die (definition 1a). You can also click on the entry for "die [2, noun]" to see this explicitly specified. Val42 02:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

A Japanese die with its oversized pip

Removed the picture of a "Japanese die" as the visual info was already apparent in another picture, and it's not true to say that only Japanese dice have a larger, red dot for number one. ShizuokaSensei 01:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Materials

This section was highly repetitive of content in other sections, and seemed very out of place in relation to the rest of the article. I edited it out, moving the few unique bits to the appropriate sections, especially the polyhedral dice information. Woodega 03:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Typo fixing

Thadius856 recently fixed a bunch of "typos," except almost none of them were things that would actually appear in print, and the ones that were seemed to actually be correct. Please let me know if I'm missing something here, though. - -Stellmach 13:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Changing image to Image, underscore to blank, [[heptagon|heptagonal]] to [[heptagon]]al etc., and re-ordering the non-printable endmatter, are all sensible source cleanup actions, though they cannot be properly described as typo fixes.

Changing ² to ², etc., is something some editors believe to be sensible cleanup too, but I agree with you that when they sit right next to ², it creates an inconsistent appearance. In other cases, I think we should write for a perfect (though nonexistent) viewer, rather than using strange work-arounds to produce the desired appearance in the current (imperfect) viewers, but in this case, using the same construct for all the superfixes seems the best choice. - I'll now edit the article accordingly.--Niels Ø (noe) 14:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep... a typical AWB drive-by, leaving some obviously destructive edits mixed in with a few good ones. If the AWB folks can't get the thing working right, perhaps it's time to block it or shut it down. —BurnDownBabylon 21:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

D100

I disagree about "Since an actual hundred-sided die would be large, almost spherical and difficult to read" as I have a 100 sided dice. It is bigger then a d6, about 2 to 2.5 times, but i wouldn't say it's large. It's not difficult to read (about font size 12, maybe a little bigger). And finaly, almost spherical, it is spherical but has 100 small flat sides (6mm), but it still will stop in the same distance as a d6. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.108.113 (talk) 19:14, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with everything you've said except for the stopping distance. It will roll a lot further than a d6. But it can reasonably be rolled on a tabletop. — Val42 03:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

A common 100 sided die is called a Zocchihedron. It is mentioned in a parenthetical aside in the article under polyhedral dice. I believe that the article could use a sentence or two on the subject. -Rekov (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Tetяaphobia

On oriental dice, I can understand 1 being marked specially. But does the red four have anything to do with oriental tetraphobia, where "four" and "death" are near homonyms in three languages? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

See Also section

I think that the See Also section contains a lot of irrelevant links to other pages, which could be found with the categories present at the bottom of the page, anyway. However, as this appears to have resulted in what could become an edit war, I'm voicing my opinions here, rather than in editing. ~XarBioGeek ^(talk) 15:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the revert. You have a good point. I have self-reverted. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 18:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Another Roman die?

See this Boing Boing post.

Apparently this is anthother Roman die? It is also from the 2nd century, so I thought for a moment it was the same die, but it's owned by someone else? Could it be a fake? Or might there have been a popular game in the 2nd century that required D20's? Shinobu (talk) 19:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The picture looks the same, so it's probably the same die. It is freakin' awesome. Can we use that picture? Cretog8 (talk) 19:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Spherical dice

Ww recently changed the text on sperical dice, and I wrote on his talk page:

I made a slight change to your recent edit of Dice; see this dif. As I state in my edit summary, I don't really know what I'm talking about - but I suspect you don't either (no offence intended). Please take a look at the dif.--Noe (talk) 07:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

He replied on my talk page:

You're correct, I've never seen such a die. I was trying to clear up the phrasing, not the content. And, If I misunderstood the content, as you seem to think, it appears that the phrasing did indeed need repair as it allowed readers to misunderstand the content.

I think your sense of things may be right (the energetics suggest the most stable situation is with the ball sitting in the dip an tan edge), but there is another possibility, which is what I think my understanding was, and that is that there is a "ledge of stability" for balls resting on a facet which suggests that a rolling die may settle with the internal ball sitting on the facet as it oscillates while losing energy of motion. I think, as in some theoretical situations, that we require resort to experiment. Science rules! [...] ww (talk) 15:23, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Googling "spherical dice" gives this (and more):

• us patent 5018738 - not facets or vertices, but apertures
• everything2.com - pits
• evansopticalengineering.com - shafts
• A German patent specification 488.334 (page 1, lines 12 to 32) is mentioned here: us patent 6109608

I now think that the hole is not an octahedron (for the six "sided" die) as I thiought previously, but certainly some shape with octahedral symmetry where the wheight can rest in six symmetrically equivalent pits, and I think we just need to find the simplest way to convey this.--Noe (talk) 15:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Tarsal Bone unspecific, eh?

There are about a half a dozen bones in the ankle; isn't the predecessor of the die the cuboid bone? Could some more knowledgable anatomist provide a definitive answer?--Nhrenton 17:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nhrenton (talk • contribs)

"A dice is thrown...."

Every three or four months, someone does essentially this edit to one or another of the articles on probability theory on my watchlist (it also happens with geometric distribution, negative binomial distribution, and some others). (I reverted.) Is there some way to watch for that without listing all the articles that link to this one on my watchlist? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

d30 "highest"

rhombic triacontahedron — ... A thirty sided die is the largest multi-faced die that is a symmetrical polyhedron. ...

Does this mean the largest one on the market? A fair die is necessarily symmetrical. If symmetry other than prismatic is meant, there are five Catalan solids with more faces; if not, the dipyramids and trapezohedra can go as high as you like. —Tamfang (talk) 06:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree this should be amended; not sure how. But you say "A fair die is necessarily symmetrical."; that's debatable. A Zocchihedron is meant to be fair, but the 100 sides are not symmetrically equivalent.--Noe (talk) 11:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Dice/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

Fails Wikipedia:Good article criteria 2b. It needs a lot of work on referencing to be a GA. It passed GA in 2005, and standards have increased quite a bit since then. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

If the faces are not equivalent, fairness depends (according to an article on theoretical fair dice, somewhere or other) on the bounciness and friction of the table. —Tamfang (talk) 02:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Also puzzling:

It is considered to have the highest rate of generating random numbers due to its large array of numbers and natural spherical shape.

But are Catalan Solids marketed as dice?

left and right dice

The link describing left and right dice contradicts the information in this article. Their image of left-handed dice is the same orientation as the Western dice displayed on this article, yet both this article and the link say that Western dice are RIGHT-handed. 129.78.64.100 (talk) 02:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Probability Section Challenge

With the threat to remove this section of the article if challenged, I would make a two-fold argument: First, having recently pared down my library, I would ask someone else to provide reference for the mathmatical formulas found here. Second, the two graphs are completely logical and anyone removing them without considering the below line of thought would be all too welcome among the stampede of lemmings often encountered in everyday life!

Possible Outcomes of a Single Roll of Two Dice

While easily accessible references are preferred, the two graphical representations in the article are easily verified by understanding two standard dice have 6 sides each, with a total of 36 possible permutations. The same results have been independently arrived at years ago, with just a few minutes of work in assessing what combinations are possible on a single throw of two standard dice, with equal probability given to each of their six sides, including the same nearly perfect bell-shaped curve distribution.

To make the analogy more clear, understand the dice are distinct, and one white and one brown may be envisioned.

As on the charts, a '2' may only be derived by the 1/36 chance combination of the white die contributing a '1' and the brown die contributing a '1.' No other combination exists to yeild a '2' result. As on the charts, a '12' may only be derived by the 1/36 change combination of the white die contributing a '6' and the brown die contributing a '6.' No other combination exists to yeild a '12' result. As on the charts, there are two and only two ways a '3' may be derived. A three may be the 1/36 chance combination of the white die contributing a '1' and the brown die contributing a '2.' A three may be the 1/36 chance combination of the white die contributing a '2' and the brown die contributing a '1.' The sum of the probabilities, 1/36 + 1/36 = 1/18, or 5.56% probability. No other combinations exist to yeild a '3' result. All other information on the charts is strictly logical, and congruent conclusions are inescapable, and anyone wanting to be contentious should first provide alternative scenarios to arrive at a roll of 2, 12, or 3, outside the possibile outcomes described above.grubbmeister (talk) 06:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

To what are you responding here? What threat has been raised?  —Tamfang (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Contradicting the "oldest" in Iran? Not sure.

I was just reading an article elsewhere and I was reminded of a statement here. I believe that the statement in this article saying that the "oldest known dice" may (keyword is may) possibly incorrect, although I could be very wrong. Dice were found at Skara Brae, which has been known to exist since possibly 3100 BC. That link goes to an interactive thing. Click Go > Animals > Bones (shortened form listed here) and it will display the dice. I'm not sure how old the dice actually are and I cannot find a reliable date for them online, but I just thought a citation for the statement in the article is warranted, since there appears to be a question about it. MagnoliaSouth ^(talk) 20:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Given that the first dice weren't cubes it's not even clear what is meant by dice here. Also all sorts of nationalists like to make such claims, so statements of this kind should always come with a reliable source. Hans Adler 20:34, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Hans, your logic is a bit skewed. Perhaps you should try reading an article before accusing someone of "nationalism". I did research the "Skara Brae" claim and it is unfounded since the site has been dated to be from 2500BC at the EARLIEST, although there is no way to confirm that date either. On the other hand, the Burnt City finds, which have been dated scientifically and have been continuously excavated for over 30 years, by a multi-national archeaological team, contridicting your infantile "NATIONALIST" accusation. There was a citiation attached months ago, but I cannot find the exact time at which this article was vandalized to retrieve it. However, the citations can also be retreived from the Burnt City article in Wikipedia.Mehrshad123 (talk) 19:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Handedness in Dice

The article currently defines "handedness" in dice, and suggests that Western dice are right-handed, whereas Chinese dice are left-handed. This current description accurately reflects its source. However, note the following passage from David Parlett's Oxford History of Board Games (p. 28): "A die is right-handed if, when you look at the corner surrounded by the lower numerals, the numbers 1-2-3 read in clockwise rotation, and are left-handed otherwise.... the several dozen I have immediately to hand from various sources are about equally divided between the two." Now Parlett may well have an unusual collection which does not represent the current standards of Western dice production. But his very definition of right- and left-handedness is the reverse of the Wiki article (and its source). This does not appear to be a typo on Parlett's part because a diagram in the book is consistent with the text. On the face of it (pun intended?) Parlett's definition seems more rational: in clockwise dice, counting from 1 to 2 you go right, and he defines these are right-handed. Anyone have further sources on this? I found nothing about handedness in Scarne, but I've got a couple more sourced to check. I did a quick survey of my dice, and indeed only 1 of my Western dice was clockwise; however my Asian dice went both ways.Phil wink (talk) 05:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

d10+d10=d100?

Teh 100 sided dice section says they are not commonly used bceause it is equivalent to 2 ten sided dice... From somone in the konw, how would you combine the two scores to get 1>100? Multiplying would not be equivlant because some numbers would be more likely than others, and numbers like 19 impossible. then I thought maybe using it to give the digits, ie 0-9 for the units 0-9 for the tens and then add one? if this is the idea then could this be added briefly to that section. ~~ WPM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.111.134 (talk) 22:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Your last guess is the correct one. Say I roll a 3 on the "tens" die, and a 6 on the other - that gives me 36. 204.153.84.10 (talk) 00:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

new external link

Hi there, I created an article on sex dice, and it was deleted as it was not see as notable. In the process a site dicecollector .com was blacklisted. I have nothing to do with this site, but I do feel that it is a valuble resource. There are so many different dice on there. Please take a look and contact PMDrive1061 to discuss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tommysimms (talk • contribs) 01:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I just checked the site again and the owner is a Guinness World Record holder for collecting over 11,000 different dice! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tommysimms (talk • contribs) 02:01, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

"Standard variations" table

"pentagonal dodecahedron" & "regular"

_ _ My first take on the "pentagonal" edit was

Good point, there are dodecahedra with other than pentagonal faces, but others need analogous treatment (even tho since only the D4 & D6 escape that -- because tetrahedron is being so minimal and because "cube" specifiesying what "hexahedron" would not).

_ _ My second take, as i said in my now self-reverted edit, was that "regular", rather than face-shape, was the crux of the matter.
_ _ But i think both i and the "pentagonal" editor were being bone-headed: with at most two exceptions i know of (single-piece D100, i assume, and a D7 mentioned in WP in connection with a antique cribbage variant), even non-cubical dice are made with scads of symmetry - congruent faces and lots of congruent dihedral angles. If there's a problem in this article, it's that we don't make that as explicit, in one place, as we should. Once that is said, d12 doesn't need "pentagonal" or "regular", and so on down the line.
_ _ IMO it's worth remarking on the high symmetry in the context of the fact that every symmetry adds to the assurance of "fair" (equal-probability) dice.
--Jerzy·t 05:16 & 07:10, 2005 August 11 (UTC) [alterations show by old being struck thru and new being bolded.]

"Notes" on Trapezohedron

_ _ (For the whole table, the existing "Notes" column might better be split into two columns, "Face" ("Triangle", "Trapezohedron", etc., and "Notes", saving words and leaving the simpler cases clearly distinguished by having nothing in the "Notes".)
_ _ I'm removing

the smallest angle of five faces point to one edge, the smallest angle of the other points to the opposite.

bcz it is incoherant: Does "edge" mean "extemity of the figure" or "line segment between vertices? Does "point to" mean pointing like an arrow, or like the open, working end of a musical horn or a firearm? It is probably an attempt to specify the two roughly conical halves of the figure that result when it is broken roughly at the "equator" that ten of the 12 vertices cluster near; in any case, my replacement for it will help to make the point that depends on this one.
_ _ I'm removing

Additionally, on most currently-manufactured dice, faces on opposite halves of the die meet at a right angle.

bcz it calls for visualizing something (a right dihedral angle? A plane right angle on one face sharing a vertex with one wider angles belonging to each of two other faces?) not everyone can do from words alone, and bcz it is inconsequential: a fact with no obvious significance or even obvious curiosity value.
--Jerzy·t 07:10, 2005 August 11 (UTC)

Non-transitive Dice

Request for article. Here are some details. Thanks!

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/25/nontransitive_dice_h.html

bells and skews

Summing multiple dice produces approximations to normal distributions ("bell curves"), while eliminating high or low throws can be used to skew the distribution in various ways.

This sentence is now in the "non-cubical" section, and seems a little out of place there; the same can be said of cubes. Where would it fit better? —Tamfang (talk) 21:31, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The verb "to dice"

This should also mention the cooking term somewhere: dice, diced (carrots), dicing. Or should this become a disambiguation page?

Of course, wikipedia is not a dictionary. But there are any number of jargon words involved in cooking, and they could all be listed under one page like culinary jargon or whatever.

Or we could make cooking/dice or culinary/dice or something else. Other possible disambiguation pages could be roast, blend, boil, pot, stew....

I'm not sure which method is most appropriate. Opinions? - Rootbeer 2002-04-04

I like the idea of a page on culinary jargon. Or could it be integrated into a broader page on cooking itself? Other opinions? [[user:Koyaanis Qatsi|Koyaanis

Why is there a discussion on a page for culinary jargon in the talk section of dice?24.71.223.140 04:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not just a cooking term. It also gets used to describe particular forms of violent dismemberment, or anything where cuts cause something to become small chunks. I think that the concept of dicing has little enough to say about it that it doesn't warrant an article, unlike the dice you roll. I'm sure this issue is covered on the Wiktionary, perhaps a sister-project link is more in order. (I've added one to at least temporarily address this) ~rezecib ^(talk) 12:53, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

"Binomial distribution" misused

In the final paragraph of the section "Uncommon dice", it mentions the term "binomial distribution" twice. Neither of the two cases under discussion have a binomial distribution. See for example, the binomial distribution entry (actually, the entry for binomial distribution contains a minor error as well, but not nearly so egregious as this one). The only way to make sums of dice have a binomial distribution is to label the faces with nothing but 0's and 1's (and make the fraction of 1's the same for each die in the sum). I think the best thing to do would be just remove any reference to binomial distributions. -- Glen Barnett 137.111.13.34 02:59, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It looks like this got cleared up a long time ago ~rezecib ^(talk) 12:53, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Knucklebones

The current text includes

Dice probably evolved from knucklebones, which are approximately tetrahedral.

My trick memory says "knucklebones of oxen", but part of the trick is that i have no memory of why, nor opinion that it is true. In the context of slave-holding cultures, "knucklebones of humans" is not unthinkable, and plausible to infer with the current wording, especially since we worry so much about knuckles of humans and so little about other species' knuckles. How about a knowledgeable clarification. (BTW, a Google search of WP turns up only ads, including "Sexy Knucklebone Singles". What a country!.)
--Jerzy (t) 20:55, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the history of dice but I quirked an eyebrow at the suggestion they started from 'knuckle bones' - as these don't really exist - for humans at least. In the human sense knuckles are the joints between the metacarpal bones and phalanges. And none of these bones are remotely tetrahedral - they are basically small versions of the cartoon 'doggy bone' picture. For quadruped 'hands', some of their 5 digits have disappeared during evolution with the remainder being strengthened, all by varying degrees depending on the animal. In the horse only one sturdy finger remains, upon which they stand. The vestigial digits might become stubby enough to be dice shaped; I suspect not though. They most likely used carpal/tarsal bones (of the wrist/ankle), some of which are distorted cuboids in shape.

--Shadeofblue 00:24, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

It was not so much as knucklebones that were used as ankle bones. Romans used the ankle bones from goats and sheep to make the early dice. Also used was wood, horns, and ivory

"Knucklebones" are ruminant astragali, which are ankle bones, making it a misnomer, but still the only proper term. As for being tetrahedral, they have four stable resting positions, which may be enhanced by grinding. Uncommonly, they are ground so that they have six unequally stable resting positions. ~rezecib ^(talk) 12:53, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

It seems to me that there are a large number of pictures attached to this article. I think that we should evaluate the usefulness of so many pictures. Perhaps we should remove some of them, such as the spherical dice (explanation of spherical dice will then need to be incorporated into the article), or the european/asian/casino style dice picture.Rekov (talk) 00:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Spherical dice are a novelty item, not really important in this article. I wouldn't miss that picture. However, the different appearance of Asian dice is, I think, relevant, and I don't think that picture should be removed. I rather think the number of pictures showing selections of polyhedral dice could be reduced.--Niels Ø (noe) (talk) 09:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess I see your point about the Asian dice picture. Here is what I think needs to be removed: The spherical dice, 1 or 2 of the old dice (knucklebone, bone, and collection of historical Asian dice), the three pictures of purple polyhedral dice, and the picture of 5 blue polyhedral dice. This should eliminate most duplicates. Rekov (talk) 19:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't remove the knucklebone - it is (or at least may be) the historical root of modern dice! But it would be great if it could be replaced by a photo of an actual archaeological find, rather than some modern reproduction. Other than that, I agree.--Niels Ø (noe) (talk) 20:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the following pictures: , , , , Note that I also removed the precision Backgammon dice, primarily because they do not match the description of precision dice in the article, and also because such dice are depicted in the European/Asian/Casino style dice picture. I have also moved the picture of assorted role-playing dice to the Application in role-playing games section, though this leaves the top of the article bare. I couldn't decide which of the historical dice pictures to remove so I left them all. -Rekov (talk) 22:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

bah, you removed my picture... i think that the more pictures the better, even if they don't match the description of the original dice, its always interesting to know the variations... i think the article was richer with those pictures... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grandexandi (talk • contribs) 01:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, once again we seem to have some unnecessary picture build up. Due to the controversy of the last purge, I will list this pictures which I believe to be unnecessary, and allow you people to reject some of them. Ok, first off, in the ORDINARY DICE section, there are two pictures which demonstrate the difference between European and Asian dice. I recommend that the photograph remain, as it also compares casino-style dice, and that the other image be deleted. The descriptions of the two images can perhaps be merged into the remaining picture. Rekov (talk) 18:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Polyhedral dice

The picture we're now using for polyhedral dice is sub-optimal on may fronts. It's extremely low-contrast, the mottling does not show edges and verticies clearly, the extreme rounding of the corners compounds this problem, and the lighting is too direct. I'd like to suggest some of these commons alternatives (none of which are mine, it so happens):

None of these are perfect (the perfect image would show black and white dice on a neutral background with diffuse light), but they at least illustrate the subject in a way that one does not have to squint to make out. -Miskaton (talk) 20:18, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Which picture, in particular, are you talking about? Looking at the article, it's not really clear. Is it the one under ====Standard variations====? Additionally, the third image you have there is already being used in Dice#Application in role playing games. ~rezecib ^(talk) 22:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I like the shiny one best. —Tamfang (talk) 00:30, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Old French vs French origin

I really don't know if this is relevant to anyone, but I'm a french canadian, and I know that a die in french is dé. In the article, we mention that it comes from old french; you might want to change that into comes from french instead of Old French. I'm not making the change myself because I don't want to mess with somebody's work without being 100% sure of what I'm doing. I'm just suggesting that... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicolas M. Perrault (talk • contribs) 03:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason it says Old French (about 1000 to 1500) is that it comes to English through Middle English (about 1270-1470), at which point modern French hadn't developed yet. ~rezecib ^(talk) 12:53, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism in first sentence

The second sentence looks like it's been vandalized. The words / links don't make any sense. Going back a few revisions gives Gambling, craps, and sci bo as the (much) more appropriate terms / links.

This has been fixed. ~rezecib ^(talk) 12:53, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

the size standard

Common dice are small cubes 1 to 3 cm along an edge (16 mm being the standard) ...

The phrase "the standard" implies that it was formally decided, somewhere and somewhen, that this ought to be the size. By whom? Obviously not the casinos. An association of board game manufacturers?

If no such authoritative decision was made, I'd say "standard" (but not "the standard") if a significant market of dice-related accessories exists that depends on 16mm. Otherwise I'd say "most common". —Tamfang (talk) 16:32, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Aren't coins face-transitive?

In the section "Rarer vatriations", we have:

The full geometric set of "uniform fair dice" (face-transitive) are:

• Platonic solids [...] 4, 6, 8, 12, 20 sides
• Catalan solids [...] 12, 24, 30, 48, 60, 120 sides
• Bipyramids [...] any even number above 4
• Trapezohedrons [...] any even number above 4
• Disphenoids [...] 4 sides

"Rolling-pin style dice" [...] only way to make dice with an odd number of flat faces But a coin - or any other flat shape with two faces - is also face transitive, isn't it? Of course, like the rolling pins, its physical form must have one ore more "forbidden faces", but I think it should be mentioned in this list. Am I right?

Another thing (not completely thought through): If you have two identical pyramids, each with n triangular faces and a regular n-gon as base, and glue them together base-to-base, so that the centres of the bases coincide, and subsequently (unless the bases coincide completely) remove the corners that are sticking out, you'll have a face-transitive die with 2n faces - no matter how you rotate the two bases relative to each others before gluing them together. Are all these solids covered by the list, even if the angle of rotation isn't a multiple of 360 degrees / 2n? - I'm not saying these solids are interesting, but the list is meant to be exhaustive.

Likewise, aren't pyritohedrons face-transitive? They aren't included on the list, are they? Perhaps neither my twisted bi-pyramids nor the pyritohedrons should be included, but the first line shouldn't promise a complete list.--Nø (talk) 11:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right on (i think) all points. Furthermore, consider each Platonic solid as an intersection of infinite pyramids: these can be arbitrarily rotated and their angles (steepness) changed – I think all the Catalans can be generated in this way. Ideally there ought to be a chart showing how each die can be continuously deformed into another without losing fairness in the transition (though their face-count may change). —Tamfang (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Number of faces (n) on bipyramids should be 2n (n = even), and trapezohedra should be 2n (n = odd), to ensure a flat topmost face when at rest. I've seen a number of convex isohedra which might make fair dice, but I can't determine if the larger shapes have flat topmost faces when at rest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.116.69.88 (talk) 23:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed

The question of the pips altering the odds got a slew of s:

Some people claim that the pips on the face of certain styles of dice can cause a small bias, but there is no research to support this claim.[citation needed]

The supposed bias is reduced somewhat in the Japanese die with its oversized single pip (pictured).[citation needed]

Casino dice have markings that are flush, offering the assurance that this brings them very close to providing true uniformly distributed random numbers.[citation needed]

If a couple of people (some) claim pips alter the odds, which is awfully likely, then no citation is needed, right? Some people claim that two plus two equals four. - 67.224.51.189 (talk) 17:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hope this helps. I've found a few dice patents (3399897, 273146000) where the pips are carefully arranged to provide balanced weighting. The pips are only an issue when they remove material from the solid shape of the die (drilled, embossed, etc). Less of an issue if the dice are larger, denser, or more massive. One site which mentions pip weighting is here, http://www.scrapyardarmory.com/2009/08/26/fair-dice/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.116.69.88 (talk) 23:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Needed image

(Moved from Template talk:VG Role-playing)

What's needed are vector images of role-playing game dice (8- and 20-sided for instance) to replace the ones in the current image. Here are some examples, though what is needed are vector images, not photographs.

A matched Platonic solids set of five dice, (from left) tetrahedron (4 sides), cube (6), octahedron (8), dodecahedron (12), and icosahedron (20).

The color doesn't really matter, though plain red and orange work well. Thanks! SharkD  Talk  08:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Two dices together with rope (Fuzzy dice)

This is very commonly seen, like here or here (starting at 3:57). Does it mean anything? Knopffabrik (talk) 13:13, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I suppose they're just meant to be hung from the ceiling or in the windscreen of a vehicle as a decoration. There are so many other things one might hang up, and I've no idea why dice are popular - so, do they "mean" something? I really don't know!--Nø (talk) 14:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

See Fuzzy dice. ~rezecib ^(talk) 03:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

pairing of numbers on D10

The sum of the numbers on opposite faces is usually 9 (counting zero as itself) or 11 (counting zero as 10).

The bold phrase was recently added, then reverted with this note:

No need for the extra numbers; except for generating percentiles, the zero face is always read as "10")

The insertion was poorly phrased, but the removal may have missed the point. If opposite faces add to a common sum, they must be either 1+10, 2+9, 3+8, 4+7, 5+6 or 0+9, 1+8, 2+7, 3+6, 4+5. Making (1)0 ambiguous does not sidestep the choice between these two arrangements.

I'm not a gamer, so I don't know what's common; but I do own a D10, and it is numbered 0..9, with the second arrangement of pairings. I can thus say that at least one D10 exists which does not fit the shorter description. —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Huh. I just looked at the D10s I have handy, and they are arranged in the 0+9 format you state. My apologies; I'll self-revert. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Groovy. Now, does anyone reading this have one with the other arrangement? —Tamfang (talk) 20:58, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Ongoing copy edit

The ongoing edits are removing load of material. When this happens simultaneously with restructuring and other changes, it's hard to see what goes out. I'd like to ask the editor to paste the removed material to the talk page so we all can consider what to do with this material.--Nø (talk) 08:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

You might want to ask User:Freywa directly - no idea if they are still watching this page. 71.194.119.1 (talk) 14:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Notation for Percentile Dice

I've never seen the notation for percentile dice shown as 1d100 or 1d%. It's always d100 or d%, since gamers never talk about the sum of more than one random roll of 100. 204.92.65.10 (talk) 14:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I remember I have been asked to roll 2d100 in a homebrew system, and it is neither impossible nor unheard of. Just like 1d1000 would be 1d‰. It is indeed uncommon, but for the sake of consistency and clarity it should be noted as such. "D100" refers to the dice itself, not a specific "roll" to be made. But on a related note, most game systems indicate single die rolls as "1d#", not "d#", such as D&D's weapon damage chart (1d6, 1d8, not d6 and d8) when it comes to most common die rolls, thus I do not see why rolls of hundred-sided die should stand any different. Salvidrim (talk) 10:05, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Non-cubic dice

I can not find any place in "Libro de los juegos" that mentions seven and eight sided dice. Could you please be more specific as to the location of that information in that book? Motleyjust (talk) 16:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Throwable: An Awkward Word!

I don't particularly expect to sway anyone with this, but... in the opening sentence:

"A die ... is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers."

I find the word "throwable" to be incredibly awkward in its usage here. I'm not yet certain what a strong replacement would be for this sentence, hence my discussing it here instead of editing the article. ShawnKilburn (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Zoccihedron?

I looked at where "Zoccihedron" was, and I was surprised. It wasn't involved in the board game, since it had different dice leading up to the number of faces. Is this misleading? The Pikachu Who Dared (talk) 00:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I removed the paragraph on the Zocchihedron. While they do exist (I own one), and can technically be used for any game requiring percentiles, using on in an actual game is painful at best due to it's instability and slow stopping speed, and nowhere near as efficient as using 2D10. In any event, there shouldn't be a whole paragraph on a single product here, especially for one as rare as that, so I pulled it out, leaving the mention and wikilink in the earlier paragraph. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:33, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

(Language:) "Die" vs. "Dice" (ref. #1)

When I first looked at this article, I thought there was a typo where it in the first paragraph says "A die", since I was sure that the singular form of the noun was "dice" (plural "dice"). So I wanted to correct the typo, but as always, I checked it before doing so, in case of alternative spellings existed. I looked it up in the Cambridge Dictionaries Online: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/dice_1?q=dice where it says that in the US or in old-fashioned (UK) English, "A die" is also used in addition to (singular) "dice". So I went on to add in the brackets where the word is explained "UK: A dice", to prevent the confusion that I experienced.

When I later also looked up the first reference in this article, which can be found here: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/die--2#m_en_gb0224670&view=uk - it added to my confusion. The reason why is that the noun they refer to there, isn't "a small cube (= object with six equal square sides) with a different number of spots on each side, used in games involving chance", as the noun is defined in the Cambridge Dictionaries, which I usually turn to. Instead they refer to "die cutters", e.g. like paper dies which scrap bookers use or "metal dies" which are used in cutting out shapes in metal, as well as (architectural) "the cubical part of a pedestal between the base and the cornice; a dado or plinth". At the bottom of the article it also says: "In modern standard English, the singular die (rather than dice) is uncommon. Dice is used for both the singular and the plural.".

So now I am confused again. I am wondering if it wouldn't be better to correct this article so it would say "A dice" rather than "a die". If the case really is that modern standard English uses "dice", is it really the best option to use "die"? I would suspect that others beside me will get confused and think there is a typographical error when they see the use of the noun "die" here (since not only English-speaking people turn to English Wikipedia, but also lots of people with English as a second or third language). If the majority of English-speaking/English-reading people in the world uses the more modern (singular) "dice", wouldn't it be better to correct it. I added "English-reading people" since so many in the modern world read English daily, without necessarily speaking the language on a daily basis. Especially since the introduction of the Internet, usage of the English language has ended out becoming a daily occurance for large parts of the world). This in addition to all the English-speaking countries (as many as 126 countries? See: "List of countries where English is an official language" and "List of countries by English-speaking population here on Wikipedia).

Since English is not my every-day language, I feel a bit insecure when it comes to correcting something like this, which is the reason why I have left it as it is after my little addition of "UK: A dice", but I would appreciate it if somebody with more knowledge of correct modern standard English language (and hopefully not restricted to only UK or US english) does look at it and consider whether or not changing the singular form of the noun "die" to "dice".

Thanks a lot! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peapeam (talk • contribs) 15:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Huh, I didn't even know that there was a difference. Sadly, I can't supply any references (so I can't add anything to the article itself), but as someone from the US who used to be an avid game player, including having worked in a retail game store for about 5 years, I always thought that the singular form is "die". However, its very common in English language evolution for singular and plural forms to converge into a single, standardized form (in general, there's a general long term tendency to eliminate irregular forms in most languages), so it may be that in the UK the distinction disappeared, and perhaps is also disappearing in the US. I'm not quite sure where to go to, other than to other dictionaries, to figure out what to put in the article, though. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Peapeam, you are misreading your sources. Look at the Oxford source you linked to above and you'll see that the first definition of "die" is "singular form of dice". --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 02:38, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Tetrahedral dice

In addition to the two variations mentioned in the article (numbers at the vertices, numbers at the edges), some tetrahedral dice have a single number in the center of each face. When the die is thrown, the number of the side that lands down is considered the result. How do I know? I have some! 152.51.56.1 (talk) 19:01, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Move to Die (gaming device)

per WP:PLURAL the article should be at the singular format, so i think this should be moved to Die (gaming device) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.218.187.199 (talk) 12:07, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe that since the vast majority of sources discuss the topic in the plural, it falls under the exceptions discussed in the first paragraph. However, my opinion here is not fixed in stone; I could be persuaded otherwise. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:58, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, by far the most common name is 'dice', so much so that it's widely used for the singular as well. It also doesn't benefit from the argument in the first paragraph, that singular is better as e.g. editors can just type [[crayon]]s whenever there plural is needed. That doesn't work with dice and die. And per WP:PRECISION 'dice' is better as less ambiguous than 'die' which would need further disambiguation.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:14, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I too think it should stay where it is. I am one of those who now and then revert the use of "dice" as singular in this article, but "dice" is much more common and unambiguous than "die".

However, on Die, which is a disambiguation page, the entry pointing here reads:

One of a set of dice, gambling or game devices

Perhaps this entry should appear a bit more prominently at the page, at perhaps it should simply read

Singular of dice, gambling or game devices

--Nø (talk) 14:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, Dice is the common singular according to OED and others [[2]]

format

I found this:

$F_{6,2}(6)\,$	$=\sum _{n}{F_{6,1}(n)F_{6,1}(6-n)}\,$
	$=F_{6,1}(1)F_{6,1}(5)+F_{6,1}(2)F_{6,1}(4)+\ldots +F_{6,1}(5)F_{6,1}(1)\,$
	$=5\cdot {\frac {1}{6}}\cdot {\frac {1}{6}}={\frac {5}{36}}\approx 0.14\,$

I changed it to this:

${\begin{aligned}F_{6,2}(6)&=\sum _{n}{F_{6,1}(n)F_{6,1}(6-n)}\\&=F_{6,1}(1)F_{6,1}(5)+F_{6,1}(2)F_{6,1}(4)+\cdots +F_{6,1}(5)F_{6,1}(1)\\[6pt]&=5\cdot {\frac {1}{6}}\cdot {\frac {1}{6}}={\frac {5}{36}}\approx 0.14\end{aligned}}$

Why would anyone use the former format? The F_6,2(6) is set lower than what comes after it on the same line and crowds against the "="; the first two lines are too close together; the code is a complicated mixture of html tables and TeX. Those visual problems don't happen in the latter format and there's no mixing of html with TeX. And the latter format is standard. 138.192.56.24 (talk) 16:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

French "dé"

The page said "dice from old french "dé""; but that word is always used in french language. So it's not "old" french. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.121.208.53 (talk) 01:33, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

From "The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology" C. T. Onions (ed.) the derivation of the word either comes from ME or (O)F so you are consistent with sources, however, if a word entered English from Latin the fact that the word still exists in Italian wouldn't make the claim from the Latin as wrong. In this instance, the introduction could have been from French.Tetron76 (talk) 16:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Clockwise/counterclockwise

It says in the article that if the one two and three are clockwise around their shared vertex the die is left-handed. It also says that Asian dice are generally left-handed, whereas Western dice are generally right-handed. However, all dice in the photo which have three visible faces appear to contradict this. Is it because they are anomalies, or is there an error in the text?

The Wallaby (talk) 12:28, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Roman icosahedra

The article states that "ancient cultures appear to have used them in games, as evidenced by the discovery of two icosahedral dice dating from ancient Rome, currently on display in the British Museum." ref name="roman-d20"Thompson, Clive (December 2, 2003). "Ancient Roman dungeonmastering". Collision Detection. Retrieved 2006-06-26. /ref This reference points to a news clip about an auction at Christies (Sale 1314 / Lot 189) on 11 December 2003. There is only one die mentioned, and nothing about the British Museum, especially nothing about current displays. The same statement and reference appears twice in our article. So far I was only able to turn up this blog entry by an archaeologist and gamer, commenting on the auction, and referring to (another?) single die located in the British Museum - not two on display.

There is nothing pointing to the use of icosahedra in games (contrary to the cited statement), and the existence of 20-sided dice in Ptolemaic and Roman times has already been pointed out in the history section of our article. I guess we can simply delete this problematic sentence and reference. --Jonas kork (talk) 12:13, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Singular/plural

If you had asked me, I would have guessed that our article is correct to have "die" as the singular form. However, according to the OED website: "Historically, dice is the plural of die, but in modern standard English dice is both the singular and the plural: throw the dice could mean a reference to either one or more than one dice". [3]. Should the article be changed accordingly? Formerip (talk) 20:29, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Their entry for Die, [4], defines die as a singular form of dice. But it also says: "In modern standard English, the singular die (rather than dice) is uncommon. Dice is used for both the singular and the plural." I'm one of those who have reverted changes of die to dice in this article, but unless good recent sources support die, it seems it should be changed. (PS. I'm not a native English speaker.)--Nø (talk) 06:16, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Really? Wow, it's surprising to me that the OED says that. As a native speaker who talks about dice fairly often, I rarely hear dice used as a singular, and it sounds jarring and unusual when I do. The wiktionary entry suggests using die when talking about the object, and dice when talking about plurals or the game as a whole. I think that in cases where both are acceptable, the best philosophy is to leave it as it already is, just like with national variations of English. I'm not sure if that's policy, though. Grayfell (talk) 06:42, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

As another native English speaker who also talks about dice a lot (mainly in the context of kids' board games), I have the complete opposite experience to Grayfell above -- I rarely hear "die" & it sounds wrong & jarring to my ear. I have also just checked the instructions of some random boardgames close to hand and found one definite example (an English board game from the 1980s) where the instructions consistently say "dice" even when talking about a single die. (I can upload a scan of this if it would help) So I suggest both "die" & "dice" are mentioned as acceptable singulars in English since clearly there are regional differences. Too Orangey For Crows (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that odd? It seems like it might be worth mentioning the singular dice usage. You got me curious, so I also grabbed a stack of games I have handy. The four I grabbed all used die, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game book, a Milton Bradley game, a Discovery Toys game, published for an American audience, and a Ravensburger game which is more international. Anyway, is it okay to cite a dictionary for that kind of thing? I'm going for it. Grayfell (talk) 04:49, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

What's in OED seems to go further than this, though. Not that "dice" is an acceptable alternative as the singular, but that it is the standard form, with "die" being archaic. Formerip (talk) 15:02, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

It merely says uncommon, not archaic. The US English version ([5]) doesn't even say that, and the Random House dictionary simply defines it as the singular of dice ([6]). This suggest to me that it is probably a matter of WP:ENGVAR and should be left alone for now. Grayfell (talk) 02:34, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with your findings. 50.151.230.203 (talk) 02:43, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

You've linked to the wrong entry in the American English OED. The cube with numbers on is dice: [7]. So the issue does not appear to be ENGVAR but common usage. Formerip (talk) 20:37, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The full OED entry (can't link, accessing it through a university site) for "die" states, "I. With plural dice. (The form dice (used as pl. and sing.) is of much more frequent occurrence in gaming and related senses than the singular die.)" I'm startled, as I've always used "die" for singular, and still prefer it. DoorsAjar (talk) 21:51, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected about the OED-American link, but I remain unconvinced that it's not a regional variation. The Random House dictionary does state die as being the standard singular. Merriam Webster seems to agree ([8]) Admittedly they don't have the quite the weight of the OED, but for regional variations it seems significant that two major American dictionaries are in agreement. The American Heritage Dictionary seems to agree with the OED, however, which, if nothing else, shows that it far from a settled issue, and should be edited with a great deal of caution. My point was that for issues where either are acceptable, it's best to just leave it alone and stick with whatever was in the original article. I think that WP:RETAIN still applies here. Grayfell (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Merriam Webster also has this: [9], and the Random House entry seems weird to me. You don't normally see the plural of a count noun with it's own entry, so they seem confused about what they are doing.

I don't see any evidence that this is about regional variation, but if it is, we need sourcing that says so, so we can be clear about it in the article.

I also therefore don't think WP:RETAIN applies. I think we determine what is most authoritative in terms of sourcing and follow it. Formerip (talk) 23:59, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

This seems like it might need an RFC to resolve. 174.251.2.54 (talk) 03:03, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Dice Holdings

Is there any way we can add information about the other brands that this company owns? See the portfolio here:

http://www.diceholdingsinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=211152&p=irol-landing — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarnobat (talk • contribs) 19:34, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Copy edit, September 2013

I have copyedited down through "Non-cubic". A copyedit is still needed from "Standard variations" down. Another day... – Quadell ^(talk) 13:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I have copyedited the section "Standard variations". A copyedit is now needed from "Rarer variations" on down. Greatpopcorn (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I have copyedited the rest of the article. Removing copy edit tag. Greatpopcorn (talk) 01:13, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Are citations needed? Comment Reply

We have

The 4-sided platonic solid is difficult to roll, and a few games like Dayakattai and Daldøs use a 4-sided rolling pin instead.[citation needed]

The citations can be found in the wikilinked articles. Do we really need to repeat them here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nø (talk • contribs) 12:56, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I would think so, yes. A simple copy and paste should do the trick. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 16:05, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Dubious

As I was copyediting this article, I found some information in it that I find dubious. (Much of the article is unsourced.) In particular, the article claims "Tacitus stated that the Germans were passionately fond of dicing", but there were no "Germans" at that time, and any such term would be an anachronism. There were Gauls, Franks, Celts, Teutons, and Goths, all living in that general region and/or providing ancestors for modern Germans, and I'm not sure what group Tacitus referred to. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:49, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, the article claims "The word for four in Chinese, Japanese and Korean is a homophone of the word for death and is considered unlucky." Japanese, Korean, and the various languages in China are from different language families and have very different words for both "four" and "death". It isn't a homophone in all these languages. – Quadell ^(talk) 18:19, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I guess we can see why it is was delisted at GAR... there's a lot of fix, but thank you for the copyedit! 129.33.19.254 (talk) 18:22, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

For anyone who's curious, The Chinese-Japanese-Korean thing is about the Chinese writing system. 四, the character for 'four' is pronounced the same or similarly as 死, the character for 'death'. Chinese languages, Japanese, and to a lesser extent Korean all use these characters, so this aversion is shared. Having said that, the connection to this topic is really "dicey", and I would have no problem cutting it from the article. Grayfell (talk) 08:07, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Three points for "dicey". I too think it should be omitted. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:49, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The use of "Germans" probably refers to the tribes of Germania as collectively identified in this way by the Romans. It seems to me one of those acceptable historical anachronisms. For example retrospectively referring to the Holy Roman Empire, what was going on in "England" when it was clearly individual Anglo-Saxon/Danish kingdoms or referring to Christopher Columbus as Italian before such a country existed. Now to the red fours. A linked article says now about India being the origin of red fours. Why?. Like thirteen in the west, four is an unlucky number in much of the far East and there have been sources to say the Red is a lucky colour used to compensate the bad luck. The origins of unlucky four may or may not be down to the homophone with death in Chinese, but it does not need to also be a homophone in other languages for the supistition to spread. Dainamo (talk) 08:45, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I dispute that those anachronisms are acceptable for an encyclopedia. They are not NPOV because they are deliberate attempts to construct nationalistic narratives around ill-fitting historical facts. Your cited examples are more obviously non-neutral than the usage in this article that you mean to support by them so they actually undermine your case. 209.30.80.214 (talk) 03:16, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The line about Tacitus and the "Germans" appears to be derived from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica [10]. I'll leave it to someone else to actually track down where they got it from, but as I recall, there's a lot of stuff attributed to Tacitus that only survives 2nd or 3rd hand, much like it ended up in this article. Germania is a valid historical concept, so calling them Germans is slightly clumsy, but I don't think this is non-neutral. Grayfell (talk) 03:40, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Games played with dice

With dice you can play Backgammon, Jumanji, Craps, .. Yatzee.., etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.6.175.142 (talk) 06:54, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Do you want to suggest any changes to the article? It seems to me applications of dice is sufficiently covered in the article, with wikilinks to relevant articles.--Nø (talk) 19:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Image falls outside of border in mobile

I was looking at this page in mobile view, and the image at the top of the page (at least) appeared to extend outside of the box for it, covering some of the page text. If it's necessary, I was using an iPad (unsure of version: school-owned) in a horizontal orientation. RETheUgly (talk) 17:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I've got a picture of a die..

Hello all, I just took a picture of an old die I saw at a museum dating back to 2000 B.C. Should I upload this to the Wikipedia Commons image page?

EggsInMyPockets (talk) 18:26, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Might as well! 65.126.152.254 (talk) 21:50, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Singular

It was the question before if die/dice was regional and ENGVAR applied (that discussion never finished), but now both Merriam-Webster (American English) and Oxford English dictionary (British English) describe dice as singular. OED says "die" is uncommon and MW even gives the possible plural "dices". Clear is that "die" is dated, though perhaps not yet obsolete. Either way I've changed it. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 14:00, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Please don't. Though it may be dismissed as pedantry, the sheer number of sources that use "die" as singular and "dice" as plural is overwhelming when looking at the best quality sources, including the ones used throughout the article. The problem, as always, when defaulting to dictionary listings is they are descriptive based on all sources, while a technical description uses more specific sources. Again, like the ones in the article. When the predominance of sources used in the article use "die" as singular, so should be article itself. Plus there's the fact that the article has been stable with the usage for years. I have reverted your change. oknazevad (talk) 15:36, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

PS, the M-W entry refers to "dices" only in relation to food cut into cubes, not to the analog random number generators this article is about. It also only refers to cubical (six-sided; d6) dice, and ignores polyhedral dice, which make up a significant portion of this article. So, again, I note that it's not a high-quality source for the purposes of this article. oknazevad (talk) 00:07, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I can't recall ever hearing a person say "a dice". I hear things like "roll the die" when used singularly, never "roll the dice" when referring to a single die. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 03:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Who says "a dice"? Can someone please smack them in the head. With a mace. --Khajidha (talk) 16:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Nonsense sentence

"Sometimes, dice are sold additionally with a die resembling the five Platonic solids, whose faces are regular polygons, or the pentagonal trapezohedron die, whose faces are ten kites, each with two different edge lengths, three different angles, and two different kinds of vertices." How can one die resemble five solids? --Khajidha (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Burnt City Dice

The burnt city dice are actually likely not as old as claimed. Will mark this as disputed for now, unless anyone has a reason not to.BobTheMad (talk) 22:59, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree. That entire paragraph is a mess. I've removed all the dubious assertions without citations and added new references.--Rurik the Varangian (talk) 20:27, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

The Burnt city dice are indeed the oldest known dice found. The "debunking" citation provided is POV, not a scientific article. The Burnt City archaeological site is a confirmed site where the dice was found. It is a Bronze Age UNESCO world heritage site that has been excavated from 1967 through 2015 by both Iranian and EU-based (IsIAO) archaeologists. I am restoring the editXarhunter (talk) 01:18, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

history

There aren't mentions about De arte aleae Dawid2009 (talk) 13:28, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Average dice throw

Section 5.1.2 of the article states:

>>> A variation on the standard die is known as the "average" die.[23][24] These are six-sided dice with sides numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, which results in the same average result as a standard die (3.5 for a single die, 7 for a pair of dice), but have a narrower range of possible values (2 through 5 for one, 4 through 10 for a pair). They are used in some table-top wargames, where a narrower range of numbers is required.[24] <<<

To roll a dice is a random event/process and in statistics, these events are not called average result, expected value would be the suitable/proper team. In short, to call it average result would be wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Da Vinci Nanjing (talk • contribs) 14:26, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

That's not what the use means. It's not talking about likeliness of outcomes, which, but the actual average (arithmetic mean) of all the possible sums. The use of the technical term needs better explanation. oknazevad (talk) 14:59, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Hello Oknazevad,

I don't agree.

The paragraph it not referring to the likelihood of outcomes. The likelihood for each number for throwing a dice is 1/n. For a dice n=6. So the probability is 1/6.

To roll a dice is in probability theory an event described by a uniform distribution. To find an average of a UD you have to sum up all possible outcomes and divide this by the count of outcomes:

n=6

1+2+3+4+5+6=21

21/6= 3.5

This average what you get is called expected value.

To get the expected value of throwing a dice in real you would have to roll the dice an infinite amount of throws than calculate the average of all throws.

It doesn't matter if a 6 sided dice has 1-6 on its sides or 2,3,3,4,4,5. The expected value for both variants of dices is 3.5.

Further, you state, the use of this technical term needs better explanation:

This means you agree it is the proper term, but it's too difficult to understand? If the term expected value needs a better explanation what about to change the term into a hyperlink referring to an online encyclopedia (e.g. Wikipedia) explaining it? Da Vinci Nanjing (talk) 14:06, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

to Oknazevad:

I got to know this stuff in Quantitative Methods - Statistics at Koblenz University of Applied Science (Germany) the Faculty of Business and Management. Thanks to Prof. Dr. G.S.

Da Vinci Nanjing (talk) 18:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Hello Oknazevad,

you did not make any comment to my explanation: You did not write, I am wrong or I am right or somewhere in between. Your edit summary says:

No, the sum of the possible outcome values divided by the number of possible outcomes is an arithmetic mean, not an expected value. That's the point of the passage.

That's wrong, why? Look at my next-to-last post in the Talk section related to the article. Referring to your explanation, it all comes down to a random event. Additionally, you reverted my edit instead of doing a new one will deteriorate some of my edit statistics. It seems like, you try to tease me on purpose.

If you got the courage to challenge me, defuse my arguments.

Let's assume you throw a 6 sided dice: You could calculate the expected value before you throw the dice as every outcome got the same probability. You could calculate the average e.g. after you throw the dice 9 times:

2 4 3 2 3 3 6 2 3

Generated with the randbetween function from MS Excel 2013 The sum is 28 / 9 = 3.111111... The 3.111111... is the average. The 3.5 is the expected value, even if your average differentiates, you knew this figure even before you threw the dice. The paragraph doesn't state how often you would throw and the outcome so it is referring to the expected value.

Hereby I provide a source to calculate the expected value from a dice throw:
http://www.mathwords.com/e/expected_value.htm

Da Vinci Nanjing (talk) 19:44, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I am having difficulty following your argument because of your grammar. Regardless, as I said in my edit summary, the sentence is about the name of the variant, which derives not from looking at the outcome of rolls, regardless of how many, but merely the average of the values of the faces, merely that (1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 is the same as (2+3+3+4+4+5)/6. There's no statistical probability involved, so any mention of expected outcomes is irrelevant. oknazevad (talk) 22:34, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

World Dice Day

I wonder if it would be interesting to add something about the World Dice Day, held on 4th december each year?

DrNoD (talk) 06:17, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Nah, too trivial. If every Wikipedia article mentioned it's honorary day that is not widely known it would make the encyclopedia look silly. oknazevad (talk) 14:55, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Augustus and Tacitus dates

Comment to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/2601:249:8A00:2500:4AF1:7FFF:FEE5:C031

I added the dates because they show that Augustus died 42 years before Tacitus was born, and therefore COULDN’T have written a letter to him. I presume it’s a mangling of an actual fact, which some other editor may be able to supply. I modified the article rather than simply commenting here, as I have observed that Talk page comments are far less likely now to result in action to correct an article than was the case 15 years ago. Koro Neil (talk) 06:01, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

So... you're just going to leave in the article what you consider to be an error, but actually making it worse by making it look silly? In the hopes that maybe someone will eventually come along and fix it? Do you have access to the cited source to see if the error is in the source, or in the person adding the source to the article? 2601:249:8A00:2500:4AF1:7FFF:FEE5:C031 (talk) 11:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Easy now... I agree with user:Koro Neil that something's got to be fixed; I agree with the IP6-user above that leaving nonsense in the article is not the best way to go about it. There's nothing wrong with pointing out an inconsistency without having the sources to put it right, but the way to go about it is

1. Remove the nonsense with a sensible edit summary;
2. and/or write a talk page post about the problem (and I do not agree it doesn't work, not on a fairly well watched article like this one - but of course it may take a little time)
3. or, of course, doing the work, finding the sources needed, and fixing it.

For now, I've removed the statement entirely - viz.

Dicing was even a popular pastime of emperors. Letters by Augustus to Tacitus and his daughter recount his hobby of dicing.

or, in Koro Neils version, highlighting the inconsistency,

Dicing was even a popular pastime of emperors. Letters by Augustus (died 14 AD) to Tacitus (born ca 56 AD) and his daughter recount his hobby of dicing.

--Nø (talk) 21:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that's a good solution until we have a solid source that discusses what Roman emperors actually did with dice. :) 8.37.179.254 (talk) 23:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)