172k views
1 vote
A fair coin is tossed 10 times, given that there were 4 heads in the 10 tosses, what is the probability that the first toss was head

1 Answer

4 votes
The probability of getting a head on the first toss is 0.5, regardless of the results of the other tosses.

Given that there were 4 heads in the 10 tosses, we can use Bayes' Theorem to find the probability that the first toss was a head:

P(First toss was head | 4 heads in 10 tosses) = P(4 heads in 10 tosses | First toss was head) * P(First toss was head) / P(4 heads in 10 tosses)

We know that P(First toss was head) = 0.5, and we can calculate P(4 heads in 10 tosses | First toss was head) using the binomial distribution:

P(4 heads in 10 tosses | First toss was head) = (10 choose 4) * (0.5)^4 * (0.5)^6 = 210 * 0.0625 * 0.015625 = 0.206

To calculate P(4 heads in 10 tosses), we can use the binomial distribution again:

P(4 heads in 10 tosses) = (10 choose 4) * (0.5)^4 * (0.5)^6 = 210 * 0.0625 * 0.015625 + 210 * 0.9375 * 0.984375 = 0.2051

Therefore, we can calculate the probability that the first toss was a head given that there were 4 heads in 10 tosses:

P(First toss was head | 4 heads in 10 tosses) = 0.206 * 0.5 / 0.2051 = 0.503

So the probability that the first toss was a head given that there were 4 heads in 10 tosses is approximately 0.503.
User Suril
by
8.4k points
Welcome to QAmmunity.org, where you can ask questions and receive answers from other members of our community.

9.4m questions

12.2m answers

Categories