Question

You are going to play a game where you bet a dollar and get to flip a coin ten times. If you get four heads in a row, you win. If you make the tenth flip without getting four heads in a row, you lose. Run this game ten thousand times. Approximately what is the probability that you will win?

Answer 1

Can someone help me out hard problem? I know I need to set it up in excel.

Answer 2

i am guessing it is something related to permutations or combinations right?

Answer 3

yeah

Answer 4

oh noooooooooo ... it will take some time man like 10 mins

Answer 5

Yeah I know

Answer 6

btw running this game a thousant times doesnt make a difference the probability remains the same

Answer 7

ok

Answer 8

How do you figure out what the probability is?

Answer 9

so first find out the total number of permutations possible ....

Answer 10

ok

Answer 11

How do I do that

Answer 12

use the formula dude>>>??!?!

Answer 13

Are you talking about RandBetween?

Answer 14

there are 90 possible outcomes according to me .. i guess

Answer 15

yes

Answer 16

no wait....

Answer 17

I need help setting it up

Answer 18

ok

Answer 19

wait...

Answer 20

Alright I will wait

Answer 21

u there still

Answer 22

yes

Answer 23

ok

Answer 24

god this is soooo hard......
total number of combinations =20!/(10!*10!)

Answer 25

now the hard part .. to find how may of them will occur in fours

Answer 26

what does that mean

Answer 27

so you have no idea about permutations and combinations?

Answer 28

Do you know how to set this up excel

Answer 29

no!

Answer 30

I have some idea

Answer 31

i got the answer anyways ...it is

Answer 32

Bigtim10
I have set it up in Excel (the Open Office version of Excel)
Cells C5 through C14 are each =RAND()
(generates random number from 0 to 1)

Answer 33

Alright

Answer 34

There's more to it than just that

Answer 35

yeah i know

Answer 36

What goes in Column A and B

Answer 37

Nothing goes in Column A or B
I usually don't start a worksheet in cell A1
ANyway
The cells next to C5 are the 10 cells (D5 to E14) and they each have this formula
=IF(C5>0.5;1;0)

Answer 38

@wolf1728 why dont you just upload the file?

Answer 39

Are you talking about uploading the excel spreadsheet

Answer 40

Yes

Answer 41

ok here is the upload

Answer 42

Wrong upload

Answer 43

That worked!
Maybe I should upload a spreadsheet to you.

Answer 44

Here is a test file
It has and ods extension which I think should work - anyway give it a try

Answer 45

http://www.zamzar.com/convert/ods-to-xls/

Answer 46

I can save a spreadsheet to xls BUT it does have a few problems. I like to avoid all those problems.
:-)

Answer 47

That document you sent doesn't work

Answer 48

u there

Answer 49

Okay then I'll send the next one as xls
By the way I took a little while because I put some comments (labels) as to what the cells and columns do.

Answer 50

Ok I don't understand that document

Answer 51

You don't understand? I put the comments in there for that reason.
Okay, the final answer you might be looking for is found in cell D24.
If D24 is 0 there is not 1 occurrence in 10 throws of 4 heads in a row. If the sum is 1 there is at least 1 occurrence of 4 heads in a row.

Answer 52

I'm guessing that you'd want it so it could simulate 10,000 coin flips. Maybe I should rewrite it for 100 (to keep the file size smaller). That way, if you want to add more columns, it is much easier than just working from 1 column.

Answer 53

Here is the NEW spreadsheet.

Answer 54

Hey, I just made an Excel spreadsheet showing ALL possible outcomes. There are 251 successes out of 1,024.

Answer 55

good!