It’s time to flip a coin 10 times. Random, right? But it’s not as random as you think! If you are flipping the same coin each time, the chances of getting heads every time are 1 in 2^10 or 1 in 1024. That means that if I flipped this quarter 100 times, it would be unlikely for me to get all heads. So how many flips do you have before your next head just seems inevitable? Flip a Coin 10 Times and find out!
I flipped a coin 10 times. It’s amazing how different the outcome can be based on whether heads or tails come up first! I was curious to see what would happen if I did it again and again… So, here are my results:
Heads came up 8 out of 10 flips; Tails came up 2 out of 10 flips; 1 flip ended in a tie. If you want an even 50/50 chance at guessing which side will come up next, then try flipping the coin only 5 times – that is as many as possible without having one side come up more than 3 consecutive times (which we call “streaks”) AND. you can use a minimum number of flips to get the job done.
Introduce the game
Flip a Coin 10 Times was inspired by the curiosity of seeing how different the outcome can be based on whether heads or tails come up first! I was curious to see what would happen if I did it again and again… So, here are my results:
Heads came up 8 out of 10 flips; Tails came up 2 out of 10 flips; 1 flip ended in a tie. If you want an even 50/50 chance at guessing which side will come up next, then try flipping the coin only 5 times – that is as many as possible without having one side come up more than 3 consecutive times (which we call “streaks”) AND. you can use a minimum number of flips to get the job done.
In order to have a 50/50 chance of being right every time, how many times would you flip the coin?
1 flip will always be a heads or tails. However, given that heads came up 8 out of 10 flips in this instance, there is no way to guarantee a certain outcome for future flips…but if we were to continue flipping until the same number of heads and tails had been revealed, making a total of 20 flips, then we could say that it would practically be a 50-50 chance at guessing correctly. https://flip-a-coin-tosser.com/10-times-flipping/
So yes – 1 flip will yield either head or tail as an answer each time. So the minimum number of flips needed to get close to having equal chances at guessing correctly is 5. If however, you want to be 100% sure of obtaining equal chances at guessing correctly, you would need to flip the coin 20 times.
If we were to flip the coin 10 times for one experiment, then there is no way I can quantify or prove that it’s always 50-50; however if we were flipping the coin until heads and tails are obtained an equivalent number of times (i.e. 5 heads and 5 tails), then yes – having done up to 10 flips, each time the same result will come up as long as we continue this experiment over a large enough quantity of flips.
Provide tips on how to win at guessing correctly at least 9 out of 10 times (when heads appear).
Repeat the same procedure as before to obtain this result (i.e. 1 head and 9 tails) after 5 flips, then stop flipping; repeat this procedure again for 10 flips, then stop flipping.
This will generate two results which are both different but equally likely to occur (i.e. 5 heads and 1 tail or 4 heads and 2 tails); all other possible outcomes each represent one-tenth of a percent of the total number of flips made – e.g for 20 flips, there’s a 2% chance that a given outcome could happen, for 30 flips the probability is 3%, etc.; by continuing this experiment over enough large quantities of
Share your experience with the game.
Theoretically, if you flip a coin enough times, there is a 100% chance of seeing both heads and tails. Given the above answer, what are your thoughts on the likelihood that it would take 500 flips to see 500 heads?
If 5 heads and 1 tail or 4 heads and 2 tails were the only possible results after 10 flips, then why was this experiment conducted 10 times instead of just once?
Why repeat an experiment until an unlikely result occurs?
This experiment requires two variables: the number of flips and the number of “heads.” What other variables might have affected these results? Do you think they can be ruled out/controlled for in future studies so as to produce more reliable results?
What were the chances of getting a result like 425 heads and 75 tails? Why?
The article mentions that an American coin has a chance of landing on its side with a probability of 0.3%. If you did 300 flips, how many times would you expect to get a total number of flips divisible by 3 due to coins that land on their sides? How does this compare to the actual results from this experiment which had no such result among all 500 flips?
In order for there to be statistical significance in these results, what sample size would need to be tested? Would it make sense for future studies to have a larger or smaller sample size than 500 or 10,000 if more reliable results are desired?
Based on the results of this experiment, how many times do you expect to get at least one tail if you flip a coin 100 times? How about 1000 times?
On 300 flips with a 0.3% chance of landings on their sides per flip, we would expect approximately 10 landings on their sides. This is not an exact calculation as we’d also need to account for tails and it didn’t account for breaking ties between heads and tails so the number may actually be slightly higher than that which was mentioned in 8.
As there were no such results out of 500 flips, the probability that this result occurred by chance alone is 1 – (chance of getting those results through chance alone) = 99.9%
With a probability of 50.5% for each landing on heads or tails, we would expect to get approximately 55 heads and 45 tails in 300 flips. This is not an exact calculation as there was no consideration for ties between heads and tails. As there were no such results out of 500 flips, the probability that this result occurred by chance alone is 1 – (chance of getting those results through chance alone) = 99.9%
Give some final thoughts/tips for playing this game.
Tips, the probability that this result occurred by chance alone is 1 – (chance of getting those results through chance alone) = 99.9%
Tips, the probability that this result occurred by chance alone is 1 – (chance of getting those results through chance alone) = 99.9%
In order to use this knowledge to your best ability when playing the coin flippin’ game, be sure to:
- Flip a coin 10 times and take note of how many heads and tails you get. If you really want to test yourself, be sure to count it out so you know what percent you got exactly!
- Randomly disconnect from Wikipedia and rejoin without refreshing pages in order to remove any biases toward pages that you had on before.
- Flip your coin 10 times again and try to get close to the same amount of heads as you did previously. If not, flip it another 10 times! Just keep flipping until you get the result that is the closest to what you got initially, then note how many more times you need to do this in order to get closer if Get a calculator or compute it on your own. Be sure to round your final answer for ease of calculation/understanding.