(defvar *probabilities* '((aleph 1/5) (beth 1/6) (gimel 1/7) (daleth 1/8) (he 1/9) (waw 1/10) (zayin 1/11) (heth 1759/27720))) (defun calculate-probabilities (choices &key (repetitions 1000000)) (assert (= 1 (reduce #'+ choices :key #'second))) (labels ((make-ranges () (loop for (datum probability) in choices sum (coerce probability 'double-float) into total collect (list datum total))) (pick (ranges) (declare (optimize (speed 3) (safety 0) (debug 0))) (loop with random = (random 1.0d0) for (datum below) of-type (t double-float) in ranges when (< random below) do (return datum))) (populate-hash (ranges) (declare (optimize (speed 3) (safety 0) (debug 0))) (loop repeat (the fixnum repetitions) with hash = (make-hash-table) do (incf (the fixnum (gethash (pick ranges) hash 0))) finally (return hash))) (make-table-data (hash) (loop for (datum probability) in choices collect (list datum (float (/ (gethash datum hash) repetitions)) (float probability))))) (format t "Datum~10,2TOccured~20,2TExpected~%") (format t "~{~{~A~10,2T~F~20,2T~F~}~%~}" (make-table-data (populate-hash (make-ranges)))))) CL-USER> (calculate-probabilities *probabilities*) Datum Occured Expected ALEPH 0.200156 0.2 BETH 0.166521 0.16666667 GIMEL 0.142936 0.14285715 DALETH 0.124779 0.125 HE 0.111601 0.11111111 WAW 0.100068 0.1 ZAYIN 0.090458 0.09090909 HETH 0.063481 0.06345599