if you flip a coin 100 times

blueZ · **Posted:** Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:20 pm

is it guaranteed that you will get heads 50 times and tails 50 times?

Paul · **Posted:** Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:21 pm

Asthaloth · **Posts:** 4284 **Joined:** Mon May 31, 2004 4:48 am

No, but the law of statistics says yes.
So no, not at all.

Ange · **Posted:** Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:09 pm

Statistically speaking, 100 is a pretty small sample size. So no.

Jenna! · **Posted:** Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:23 pm

You have a 1/2 chance of getting either heads or tails. As said before, 100 is a pretty small sample, but if done, you'd probably have a +5/-5 margin to 50 each

Ginger Harp Seal Pup · **Posted:** Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:57 pm

I'm so confused after reading this thread

shapu · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:47 am

The answer is no, you will not necessarily get 50/50. However, flipping a coin is a normally-distributed probability experiment. The probability that you will get 50 heads (and, therefore, 50 tails) is higher than the probability of any other result.

benladesh · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:59 am

Right I decided to try this and flip a coin 100 times. i made a little chart with check and did this until I got 100 flips. I was sure I would prove this wrong but I got 50/50

The answer is no though. You won't always get 50/50.

Shadow · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:57 am

We did a test in Chemistry last year with M&Ms to simulate half life. What we did was we put 100 M&Ms in a box and bounced it up and down to make them move and when we stopped we counted. It pretty much halved every time but sometimes it was a little more or a little less. It all depends on how you flip/count/catch etc.

zorg · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2007 3:08 am

Depends what coin you're using. Most "Tails" sides weigh a little less than the corressponding "head" side. This changes it somehow.

So its like, 49.9999% heads or 50.00001% tails ect.

hpfanfiction · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2007 11:14 am

No- in fact, it's quite likely that you'll won't get EXACTLY 50 heads and 50 tails. However, you'd almost certainly get between 40-60 of each. If you tossed the coin 10000 or 1mil times the ratio would be far closer to 50:50.

Siouxper · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:21 pm

Theoretically, yes. But in actual life, it usually is much different. The more trials you perform, the closer they will become to the theoretical predictions.

Dustin · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2007 11:58 pm

No.
I remember sophomore year we had to do that in biology for technology. I think my group had more tails than heads.

Siouxper · **Posted:** Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:12 am

I remember when my math teacher made each person do as many as we could in a few minutes, and we all competed to see who would win

Anyway, I got about the same, although I kept hitting people with my penny so it might have bounced off of them and changed sides

WIS · **Posted:** Mon Jul 16, 2007 4:34 am

zorg wrote:

Depends what coin you're using. Most "Tails" sides weigh a little less than the corressponding "head" side. This changes it somehow.

So its like, 49.9999% heads or 50.00001% tails ect.

I think they did a mythbuster on that. Apparently they proved it wrong or something with bread and butter.

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if you flip a coin 100 times

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