Final answer:
The probability of the sum of the upwards faces of two 6-sided dice being 8 is 5/36, after considering there are 36 possible outcomes when tossing two dice.
Step-by-step explanation:
To calculate the probability that the sum of the pips on the upward faces of two regular 6-sided dice is 8, we must first understand that each die has 6 faces with the numbers {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} on its faces and that the sample space (S) for one toss of a die is also {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}. When tossing two dice, there are a total of 6 x 6 = 36 possible outcomes. To find the probability of the sum being 8, we look for the combinations of these outcomes that add up to 8.
The possible combinations are (2,6), (3,5), (4,4), (5,3), and (6,2), which amounts to 5 favorable outcomes. Therefore, the probability P(sum=8) is the number of favorable outcomes divided by the total number of outcomes, which yields: P(sum=8) = 5/36.