Geometry probability

Question

A two sided coin is flipped at the same time that a number cube with faces labeled 1-6 is rolled. How many outcomes are possible?

Answer 1

Answer 2

Hi Adela,

This sounds like a pretty straightforward problem. Since these two events (flipping a coin and rolling a die) are separate (independent) events, we can use the Multiplication Rule of Probability to determine the number of possible outcomes. Since the coin can land on either heads or tails, there are 2 outcomes. The number cube can land on any of the six numbers, therefore there are 6 outcomes.

The Multiplication Rule of Probability states that if two independent events are occurring simultaneously, then the number of outcomes is the product of the number of outcomes for each event. So, this means that there are 2 * 6 outcomes . . . Or 12 outcomes.

This experiment has a small enough number of outcomes, that we could also list all the possibilities:

{ H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6 } which is a list of 12 outcomes.

Hope this helps,

Jim