If you've never heard of them, Sicherman Dice are a pair of dice which have the same odds for throwing every number as a normal pair of 6-sided dice. The numbers on the faces are different, but the odds of rolling a 3 or 18 are exactly the same as standard dice. It's weird at first, but if you do the math, it makes sense.
What I have been pondering lately deals with a different usage of dice. A long time ago, two six-sided dice were used for tables in role playing games. However, instead of using the total, they were read as two numbers put together. In other words, one dice was a tens digit, the other a ones digit. This would provide 36 different rolls (11 through 66) and you had a one in 36 chance in rolling any one of them.
For the Sicherman Dice above - if they are used in this way, the range is different. You only get 24 different numbers. (11 through 84) because you can roll and number ending in 2 or 3 twice.
More detail tomorrow, just writing it down so I won't forget right now.
Information on Sicherman dice from:
Weisstein, Eric W. "Sicherman Dice." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SichermanDice.html
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