You flip a coin 30 times and get heads 11 times, so the chance of getting heads is

Mathematics · High School · Mon Jan 18 2021

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When flipping a fair coin, the probability of getting heads on any single flip is 0.5 (or 50%) because there are two equally likely outcomes (heads or tails).


However, the actual number of heads obtained in a series of coin flips may vary due to chance. In your example, you flipped a coin 30 times and got heads 11 times. To calculate the empirical probability (observed probability) of getting heads based on your experiment, you can use the formula:

Probability of Heads = Number of Heads}/{Total Number of Flips}

Probability of Heads = {11}/{30}


So, based on your experiment, the observed probability of getting heads is approximately \( \frac{11}{30} \) or around 0.367, which is less than the expected probability of 0.5 for a fair coin. Keep in mind that with a fair coin, the law of large numbers suggests that as the number of flips increases, the observed probability should approach the theoretical probability of 0.5.

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