Question

A coin is flipped at the start of every game to determine if Team A (heads) or Team B (tails) will get the ball first.

Part A: Find the theoretical probability of a fair coin landing on heads. (1 point)
Part B: Flip a coin 12 times and record the frequency of each outcome. Determine the experimental probability of landing on heads. Please include the frequency of each outcome in your answer. (2 points)
Part C: Compare the experimental probability to the theoretical probability. (1 point)

Answer 1

Theoretical probability of landing on heads is 0.5. Experimental probability with 7 heads out of 12 flips is 0.583. Experimental probability is higher than theoretical probability.

Step-by-step explanation:

Part A: The theoretical probability of a fair coin landing on heads is 0.5. This means that out of 2 possible outcomes (heads or tails), heads has a 0.5 chance of occurring.

Part B: To determine the experimental probability of landing on heads, we need to flip a coin 12 times and record the frequency of each outcome. Let's say we got heads 7 times and tails 5 times. The frequency of heads is 7 and the frequency of tails is 5. Therefore, the experimental probability of landing on heads is 7/12 or approximately 0.583, and the experimental probability of landing on tails is 5/12 or approximately 0.417.

Part C: To compare the experimental probability to the theoretical probability, we need to compare the experimental probability of landing on heads (0.583) with the theoretical probability of landing on heads (0.5). In this case, the experimental probability is higher than the theoretical probability, indicating that in our experiment, we had a higher chance of landing on heads than what we would expect based on the theoretical probability.