After rolling two dice and flipping 12 coins. the probability that the # of heads is equal to the sum of the numbers showing on the two dice

binomial-coefficientscombinatoricsdiceprobability

Suppose we roll two fair six-sided dice and flip 12 coins. What is the probability that the number of heads is equal to the sum of the numbers showing on the two dice?

My solution is:

$$\frac{\binom{12}{2} +\binom{12}{12} + \sum_{i=3}^{11}\binom{12}{i}}{2^{12}\times6^2}$$

Did I get it correct?

Best Answer

Let $X$ be the sum of the two numbers on the dice. Then $$\Pr[X = x] = \begin{cases}\frac{6-|x-7|}{36}, & x \in \{2, 3, \ldots, 12\}, \\ 0 & \text{otherwise}. \end{cases}$$ Let $Y$ be the number of heads flipped out of $12$ coins. Then $$\Pr[Y = y] = \binom{12}{y} (1/2)^y (1 - 1/2)^{12-y} = \frac{1}{2^{12}} \binom{12}{y}, \quad y \in \{0, 1, \ldots, 12\}.$$ Then the desired probability is $$\Pr[X = Y] = \sum_{x=0}^{12} \Pr[X = x]\Pr[Y = x] = \frac{1}{6^2 2^{12}} \sum_{x=2}^{12} (6 - |7-x|)\binom{12}{x} .$$