Final answer:
Mason can have eight possible outcomes when throwing a coin three times: HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, and TTT. This result uses the fundamental counting principle to determine all permutations of heads and tails.
Step-by-step explanation:
When Mason throws a coin three times, each toss has two possible outcomes: Heads (H) or Tails (T). To list all the possible outcomes of the three throws, we consider all the permutations of these outcomes. Each position in the sequence can be either H or T, which creates a combination of outcomes as follows:
These represent all the potential sequences of heads and tails that Mason can get when he tosses the coin three times. The possibilities for one toss are multiplied by those for the subsequent tosses, resulting in a total of 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 possible outcomes. This concept is rooted in the fundamental counting principle of probability, which allows us to enumerate all possible results of an experiment