Question

toss three coins at the same time. each is equally likely to come up heads or tails. what is the probability of getting 1 head and 2 tails?

Answer 1

The probability of getting 1 head and 2 tails when tossing three fair coins is 3 out of the 8 possible outcomes, which equals 3/8 or 37.5%.

Step-by-step explanation:

When tossing three coins, each coin is independent and has an equal likelihood of landing heads (H) or tails (T), with a probability of 0.5 for each outcome. To find the probability of getting 1 head and 2 tails, we consider all possible outcomes for three coin tosses: HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, and TTT.

The outcomes with exactly 1 head and 2 tails are HHT, HTH, and THH. Since there are three such outcomes out of the eight possible ones, the probability is:

P(1 head and 2 tails) = Number of favorable outcomes / Total possible outcomes

P(1 head and 2 tails) = 3 / 8

Therefore, the probability of getting 1 head and 2 tails when tossing three fair coins is 3/8 or 37.5%.