Coin toss probability issues
Date Published: 7th December 2020
Author: Leslie Stafford
Working out the chances of something taking place is a math problem that is frequently applied in the real world and understanding how it works could put you in good situations in the future. Most times estimates are utilized in sciences, and financial markets to help project the likelihood of something taking place in the coming years. An educated guess as to what will occur in the future is what probability is all about, and there are different ways to make such estimates with the coin toss.
Before diving into such problems, questions are always directed at the usage of "fair coins", not "trick coins" that are weighted to land on a certain side. Coins used also don't land on their edges, which is a rare occurrence anyway, the biggest problems with coin tosses is that it relies on using fair coins with a true 50/50 chance.
The first problem/question faced is when a fair coin lands on its head 3 times or 5 times in a row, what's the probability of it landing on its head the next throw you may ask. An accurate reply for this is 50%, the coin has a 50/50 chance of landing on its head in the next toss, any other reply is wrongly stated and should be ignored. You may be having thoughts that the coins are fated to land on its head from the above statistic, that's not true logically and should not be banked on. Each coin flip is independent of another, the coin doesn't have a will to keep landing on a certain outcome or not to land on another outcome. Gambler's Fallacy has all these ideas inherent in it, which should be ignored because they hold no technical backings to them.
Another problem of a coin toss is deciphering if a fair coin would land on its head/tail is tossed twice in a row. As stated above, each coin flip is independent of another, the first toss and second toss do not have any relationship with each other. After the first of two throws is completed, the next throw is a new event with no memory of a previous event, you cannot base the next toss on the previous toss. Proper analysis of the above scenario is to multiply probabilities of getting a tail which is 1/2 by 1/2, which gives us a 1/4 chance of getting either two heads or two tails. The answer is that for every two tosses, there's a one-quarter chance of getting both heads and tails in those two tosses.
Before diving into such problems, questions are always directed at the usage of "fair coins", not "trick coins" that are weighted to land on a certain side. Coins used also don't land on their edges, which is a rare occurrence anyway, the biggest problems with coin tosses is that it relies on using fair coins with a true 50/50 chance.
The first problem/question faced is when a fair coin lands on its head 3 times or 5 times in a row, what's the probability of it landing on its head the next throw you may ask. An accurate reply for this is 50%, the coin has a 50/50 chance of landing on its head in the next toss, any other reply is wrongly stated and should be ignored. You may be having thoughts that the coins are fated to land on its head from the above statistic, that's not true logically and should not be banked on. Each coin flip is independent of another, the coin doesn't have a will to keep landing on a certain outcome or not to land on another outcome. Gambler's Fallacy has all these ideas inherent in it, which should be ignored because they hold no technical backings to them.
Another problem of a coin toss is deciphering if a fair coin would land on its head/tail is tossed twice in a row. As stated above, each coin flip is independent of another, the first toss and second toss do not have any relationship with each other. After the first of two throws is completed, the next throw is a new event with no memory of a previous event, you cannot base the next toss on the previous toss. Proper analysis of the above scenario is to multiply probabilities of getting a tail which is 1/2 by 1/2, which gives us a 1/4 chance of getting either two heads or two tails. The answer is that for every two tosses, there's a one-quarter chance of getting both heads and tails in those two tosses.
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