In a recent Mathematical Literacy lesson, Union’s Grade 10’s investigating probability and relative frequency using coins (flipping).

Two important points make the probability experiment of flipping of a coin useful for about probability: First, the events in this experiments are random. This means that they cannot be deliberately influenced in any way (provided that the game is fair!). There is no way of making fall one way rather than another.

Second, each possible outcome has an equal chance of occurring. The different sides of the coin have exactly the same chance of coming up when the coin is flipped.

Because of these two facts, we know that when we toss a coin, we have a 50/50 or 0,50,5 or 1212 chance of getting heads, and a 50/50 or 0,50,5 or 1212 chance of getting tails. This chance is called the theoretical probability.

When you do a probability experiment, such as tossing a coin a number of times, you find the relative frequency of each outcome. For example, if you toss a coin 1010 times and you get Heads 33 times, then the relative frequency is simply 33 in 1010 or 310310.