Question

Problems involving coin tosses are very common in probability. Coins always have an equal chance of landing heads or tails. Whether on the first flip or the fifteenth, it will always be a 50% chance for either side.

James is flipping a coin. He says there is less than a 50% chance that it will land heads this time because it landed heads on his last coin toss. Which of these is true?

Answer 1

James is incorrect. The outcome of a coin toss is always random and independent of previous tosses. Each toss has a 50% chance of landing heads and a 50% chance of landing tails, regardless of the outcome of previous tosses. This is known as the principle of independence in probability theory.

Explanation: