If we toss a coin 100 times, then we EXPECT that Heads will appear 50 times.

True
False

I think it would be true because it says expect that Heads will appear 50 times out of it being tossed 100 times. Am I wrong?

Question

If we toss a coin 100 times, then we EXPECT that Heads will appear 50 times.

True 
False

I think it would be true because it says expect that Heads will appear 50 times out of it being tossed 100 times. Am I wrong?

anonymous · Answer

50 is the 'expected outcome' but in practice it rarely will be

across · Answer

We could definitely expect to get something close to 50 heads.

across · Answer

But there's still the possibility that all of them will land on tails.

paxpolaris · Answer

E(p)=50

anonymous · Answer

yup

anonymous · Answer

Yeah that is true. So its really not a right or wrong question then? Just what we think would be expected of this?

anonymous · Answer

the scientist in me, wants to say no :) 
but true

turingtest · Answer

follow what we said on your other post http://openstudy.com/#/updates/4ef38d02e4b0dc507db7384c the idea is that the actual outcome approaches the theoretical probability as the number of tosses approaches infinity. Since we cannot toss the coin an infinite number of times, we can't even test to see if this is true, but in finite trials it is certainly unusual. As dumbcow pointed out, there is about a 95% chance we will get 40-60. So does that make you "expect" it to be 50-50? I would say no, but I think the question wants a yes :/

sasogeek · Answer

the question is asking of what we expect... no the final outcome... obviously there are 2 sides to a coin so if we tossed it twice, we expect one side to appear once and obviously have the other side appear once too... 100 times... i think we expect each side to appear 50 times so i'd say true. final outcome would only be known when we actually do the experiment