Question

A disc is white on one side and black on the other, and flipped 16 times. What is the probability that the 16th flip will result in the disc landing white side up? fraction 1 over 2 fraction 1 over 15 fraction 1 over 16 fraction 15 over 16

Answer 1

Well,

Assuming that the disc is horizontally symmetrical, we can say that the probability of the disc landing white side up is 1 in 2 times, or 0.5.

Because we are just concentrating on the 16th flip, the other 15 don't really matter.

So our answer is pretty simple: 0.5 or 1/2.

Answer 2

The 16th flip has a 50% chance of landing white.  It doesn't matter what the first 15 flips were, the probability for each flip is 1-in-2 (black or white).   That would be fraction 1 over 2, or 1/2