They're Not All Equally Likely?

If I toss a fair coin 4 times, which of the following is most likely to occur?

Clarification : Each coin toss is independent to one another.


Image Credit: Wikimedia Ipipipourax .
The total number of heads obtained is 0 The total number of heads obtained is 1 The total number of heads obtained is 2 The total number of heads obtained is 3 The total number of heads obtained is 4

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

2 solutions

Relevant wiki: Binomial Distribution

If we tose that coin n n times, there will be 2 n 2^n possible combinations of heads and tails. If we want to find in how many of those combinations there are m m heads, that just will be ( n m ) \binom{n}{m} . So, the probability of had obtained m m heads is ( n m ) 2 n \dfrac{\binom{n}{m}}{2^n} . To maximize that when n n is even, we must have m = n 2 m=\frac{n}{2} . When n n is odd, we can have m = n 1 2 m=\frac{n-1}{2} or m = n + 1 2 m=\frac{n+1}{2} .

In this case n = 4 n=4 , so the most likely event that happened is that we got 2 heads, with a maximized probability of 6 16 \frac{6}{16} .

Prince Loomba
Jun 21, 2016

MCQ trick: Same is valid for tails as heads. If answer is 0 head, then 4 head will also be because it means 0 tails. If answer is 1 head, 3 heads also because it is one tail. The only option is 2 heads. No contradiction for it. This trick is valid because question is single correct.

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...