Suppose you flip 20 fair coins.
(a) How many possible outcomes (microstates) are there?
(b) What is the probability of getting the sequence HTHHTTTHTHHHTHHHHTHT (in exactly that order)?
(c) What is the probability of getting 12 heads and 8 tails (in any order)?
Solution
Step 1 of 5
(a) How many possible outcomes (microstates) are there?
If we have n number of coins with each coil having possibility of making head or tail. The total number of microstates is given by = states
Therefore, for n= 20 coins the number of microstates will be,
Number of microstates =
microstates