Eric tossed a coin ten times. The first six tosses resulted in five heads and one tail. What is the probability that the final four tosses will be all tails? Explain.

Question

anonymous · Answer

should it still be a half?

anonymous · Answer

1/2^4=1/16

anonymous · Answer

independent !!

anonymous · Answer

What does ^ mean? I don't get how the answer is 1/16. I'm only in 7th grade and we haven't learned this. lol

accessdenied · Answer

Does the flipping of those previous coins affect the outcomes of the next four coins?

accessdenied · Answer

If we look at it this way, each coin toss has two outcomes of equal probability.  The chances of getting a tails once is of course 1/2.  Then, we look at getting two tails in a row.  I think this outcome tree helps.  Each branch represents a possible outcome, so we can count the number of outcomes at the end for the total.
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We can see that there are four possible outcomes on the second level of branches, so the chance of getting a T and then another T is 1/4, which is 1/2 * 1/2 (the chance of getting tails times the chance of getting tails)