Flipping a coin

Cobra · #1 03-14-2005, 07:07 PM

What is the formula for determining the number of combinations not permutations when flipping a coin. For example if you flip four coins how many combinations of heads and tails would you have.

Cobra

gaming_mouse · #2 03-14-2005, 07:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]
What is the formula for determining the number of combinations not permutations when flipping a coin. For example if you flip four coins how many combinations of heads and tails would you have.

Cobra

[/ QUOTE ]

not sure what you mean. but the answer must be either:

2^4

or

4+1

as far as i can see. can you explain?

Cobra · #3 03-14-2005, 09:20 PM

Thanks for the reply Gaming Mouse, I was just thinking of the other question asked about using a coin flip and coming up with one third probability. What I was trying to figure out is if I flipped a coin say N times how many different combinations I might get. For example if I had HHHH thats one combo, HHHT and HHTH and HTHH and THHH would all be counted as a second combo of 3H and 1T. I didn't know if I could come up with a number of combo's that was divisible by 3.

Cobra

gaming_mouse · #4 03-14-2005, 09:33 PM

the number of possible combos (in the sense you describe) is alway 2^n for some n. So it will never be divisible by 3.