Duhdohnium

Calculates and simulates the probability distributions for sums of combinations of Platonic dice.

This Live Script explores the probability distribution for the sum of top faces of dice when the dice have the same or different numbers of faces. In addition to direct calculation, analytic methods using probability and moment generating functions are used to characterise the distributions. The code explores up to three dice in each throw but is readily extended.

This script is motivated by a physics education game (Andrea Bussani, Duhdohnium: A Dice Game to Introduce Middle and High School Students to Non- elementary Systems Phys. Teach. 58, 167 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5145406 ) in which students attempt to deduce the number of dice and the dice types from experiments with dice fabricated as various Platonic solids.