I've submitted an application to the Application Center: Great Expectations. This is an interactive Maple document, suitable for instructional use in an undergraduate course in Probability. The mathematical content is related to the Laws of Large Numbers and Central
Limit Theorem. It requires no knowledge of Maple to use.
The basic premise:
Rosie is offered an investment opportunity. Every week the value of her investment will either increase by 40% (with probability 0.55) or decrease by 40% (with probability 0.45), the results in different weeks being statistically independent, and this will continue indefinitely. On the basis of expected value, this seems like a great opportunity, but in the long run the results are disastrous. We'll see why, and explore a way to remedy the situation.
