Coin Tossing

Enter the number of times you want to toss the coin and click the Start button. You can explore the entire run of coin tosses by moving the slider.

With any number of tosses there is a Chance Error in the number of heads that occurs. If the coin is fair (probability of heads = 0.5), then

Number of heads = Half the Number of Tosses + Chance Error.

The Chance Error is likely to get larger as the number of tosses increases. Observe this growth by running the Coin Tossing manipulative with larger and larger values of n. Notice that the chance error grows but that the percentage of heads is likely to be close to 50%. This is the Law of Averages.

Enter a number for the longest run in heads. The default is set to 5. Enter a value for the probability of heads and click the Start button. The coin will be tossed until your desired run in heads is achieved. You can explore the entire run of coin tosses by moving the slider.

You can use the Coin Tossing manipulative to explore many different chance processes. Click the Activities button for several examples.