WASHINGTON DALLAS

Everyone knows about the bitter rivalry between the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys. Being compulsive gamblers, we think it would be nice if we could predict the outcome of all the games they play against each other. As future systems engineers, we will one day be able to do just that. Until then, however, we must acknowledge our limitations and create a simple model of their behavior using an astounding first-order Markov Chain (you’ll find out more about those later). We will create a system that models the probability that the Redskins will win a game (against the Cowboys) given their performance the previous game that they played (against the Cowboys).

HOW TO USE THIS WEBSITE:

• For some introductory knowledge about DYNAMIC SYSTEMS (the primary tools of systems engineers that we know of so far) and MARKOV CHAINS (fabulous dynamic systems that model probabilities), START AT THE DEFINITIONS PAGE.

• Once you get all that down, GO TO OUR EXAMPLE PROBLEM. On that page, we step through the process of modeling a situation using a Markov Chain. We then extract all the information we can out of our model. (Torture is an effective method.)

• Find out more about us and how we got here at our PROJECT PERSONNEL AND HISTORY PAGE.

• If you get lost, you can always ask for directions at our SITE MAP.