[Math] Probability of 3 Heads in 10 Coin Flips

probability

What’s the probability of getting 3 heads and 7 tails if one flips a fair coin 10 times. I just can’t figure out how to model this correctly.

Best Answer

Your question is related to the binomial distribution.

You do $n = 10$ trials. The probability of one successful trial is $p = \frac{1}{2}$. You want $k = 3$ successes and $n - k = 7$ failures. The probability is:

$$ \binom{n}{k} p^k (1-p)^{n-k} = \binom{10}{3} \cdot \left(\dfrac{1}{2}\right)^{3} \cdot \left(\dfrac{1}{2}\right)^{7} = \dfrac{15}{128} $$

One way to understand this formula: You want $k$ successes (probability: $p^k$) and $n-k$ failures (probability: $(1-p)^{n-k}$). The successes can occur anywhere in the trials, and there are $\binom{n}{k}$ to arrange $k$ successes in $n$ trials.