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Coin flipping, coin tossing, or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air and checking which side is showing when it lands, in order to randomly choose between two alternatives. It is a form of sortition which inherently has two possible outcomes.
A test is performed by tossing the coin N times and noting the observed numbers of heads, h, and tails, t. The symbols H and T represent more generalised variables expressing the numbers of heads and tails respectively that might have been observed in the experiment. Thus N = H + T = h + t.
A third party asks them to "assume that a coin is fair, i.e., has an equal probability of coming up heads or tails when flipped. I flip it ninety-nine times and get heads each time. What are the odds of my getting tails on my next throw?" Dr. John says that the odds are not affected by the previous outcomes so the odds must still be 50:50.
A simple example is the tossing of a fair (unbiased) coin. Since the coin is fair, the two outcomes ("heads" and "tails") are both equally probable; the probability of "heads" equals the probability of "tails"; and since no other outcomes are possible, the probability of either "heads" or "tails" is 1/2 (which could also be written as 0.5 or 50%).
The probability of 20 heads, then 1 head is 0.5 20 × 0.5 = 0.5 21; The probability of getting 20 heads then 1 tail, and the probability of getting 20 heads then another head are both 1 in 2,097,152. When flipping a fair coin 21 times, the outcome is equally likely to be 21 heads as 20 heads and then 1 tail.
As an example of a statistical test, an experiment is performed to determine whether a coin flip is fair (equal chance of landing heads or tails) or unfairly biased (one outcome being more likely than the other). Suppose that the experimental results show the coin turning up heads 14 times out of 20 total flips.
A fair coin, when tossed, should have an equal chance of landing either side up. In probability theory and statistics, a sequence of independent Bernoulli trials with probability 1/2 of success on each trial is metaphorically called a fair coin. One for which the probability is not 1/2 is called a biased or unfair coin.
If one penny is heads and the other tails, Odd wins and keeps both coins. Matching pennies is a non-cooperative game studied in game theory. It is played between two players, Even and Odd. Each player has a penny and must secretly turn the penny to heads or tails. The players then reveal their choices simultaneously.