Find the probability distribution of number of heads in four tosses of a coin
Solution
When a coin is tossed four times, the sample space is
S = {HHHH, HHHT, HHTH, HTHH, THHH, HHTT, HTHT, HTTH, THHT, THTH, TTHH, HTTT, THTT, TTHT, TTTH, TTTT}
∴ n (S) = 16
Let X be the random variable, which represents the number of heads.
It can be seen that X can take the value of 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4.
When X = 0, then X = {TTTT}
∴ n (X) = 1
∴ P (X = 0) = `(n(X))/(n(S))=1/16`
When X = 1, then
X = {HTTT, THTT, TTHT, TTTH}
∴ n (X) = 4
∴ P (X = 1) = `(n(X))/(n(S))=4/16 = 1/4`
When X = 2, then
X = {HHTT, HTHT, HTTH, THHT, THTH, TTHH}
∴ n (X) = 6
∴ P (X = 2) = `(n(X))/(n(S))=6/16 = 3/8`
When X = 3, then
X = {HHHT, HHTH, HTHH, THHH}
∴ n (X) = 4
∴ P (X = 3) = `(n(X))/(n(S))=4/16 = 1/4`
When X = 4, then
X = {HHHH}
∴ n (X) = 1
∴ P (X = 4) = `(n(X))/(n(S))=1/16`
∴ the probability distribution of X is as follows :
X | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
P (X) | `1/16` | `1/4` | `3/8` | `1/4` | `1/16` |