Final answer:
Probability measures how likely an event is to occur and can predict outcomes over many trials due to the law of large numbers, not individual cases due to the randomness of events like a coin toss.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding Probability
Probability is the measure of the likelihood that a particular event will take place. In the context of a coin toss, where there are two possible outcomes, a head (H) or a tail (T), each of these outcomes is equally likely and the probability of each is 50 percent. However, predicting the exact result of a single coin toss is impossible due to its randomness. On the other hand, if we toss a coin multiple times, we can predict that around half of the tosses will result in heads and the other half will result in tails, a concept underpinned by the law of large numbers. This law states that as we increase the number of repetitions of an experiment (such as flipping a coin), the relative frequency of outcomes will converge to the theoretical probability.
Similarly, an important concept in probability is that the probability that an event does not occur is equal to 1 minus the probability that the event does occur. This is a fundamental aspect of complementary events in probability theory. Using these principles, we can understand why individual events can be random and unpredictable, but over a large number of trials, outcomes can become highly predictable.