Flipping a coin

Has anyone carried out this experiment (practically), not on a computer?

Make an observation table:

Step 1: Before flipping a coin, note down the side that is facing up (suppose, ‘Tail’). (Initial)

Step 2: Toss the coin, the flip should be uninterrupted, the coin should be tossed up to almost the same height every time.

Note the side that it lands on. (Final) That’s reading 1.

Repeat steps 1 & 2 about 100 times (More the better so make it 300 times!). Ok, maybe not on the same day, but different days, different places, but same type of surface (floor, mattress, table, etc — surface should not change for different readings to take care of coefficient of restitution) and the same height.

Results Table:

Of course, the last part to do is a plot a graph (ok, you may do this in Excel) — which graph, what goes on which axis, …this is left to the reader to work out.

Analyse the results. Is there a correlation? Can you predict what will be the outcome (Final) if you know the initial state of the coin?

Categories: Blog

Tags: coin flip, coin toss, flipping a coin, probability, tossing a coin

Originally published at http://scitechgen.com on July 11, 2020.