[Math] If you toss $1000$ fair coins $10$ times each, what is the probability the *some* coin will get $10$ heads

probabilityprobability theory

The answer to this is supposedly close to $0.63$. However, I get approximately $0.9765625$ for the following reason:

The probability of a fair coin flipped $N$ times resulting in all heads is $1/2^N$. In this case, $1/2^{10}=1/1024$. If I flip $M$ coins, $N$ times each, there are $M$ ways for some coin to result in all heads (from the binomial coefficient "$M$ choose $1$"), so the probability of some coin resulting in all heads is $M(1/2^N)$. In this case, $1000\times 1/1024 \approx 0.9765625$.

Can someone please explain the flaw in my reasoning?

Best Answer

The probability that you get no tails when you flip a fair coin $10$ times is $\left(\frac12\right)^{10}$. The probability that you get at least one tail is therefore $1-\left(\frac12\right)^{10}$. The probability that each of the $1000$ coins comes up tails at least once is then $$\left(1-\left(\frac12\right)^{10}\right)^{1000}\approx0.37642\;.$$ We want the probability of the complementary event, which is therefore about $0.62357$.

As a quick crude estimate note that $$\left(1-\left(\frac12\right)^{10}\right)^{1000}\approx\left(1-\frac1{1000}\right)^{1000}\approx\frac1e\approx0.37\;.$$