Question

Next, we want to simulate throwing an honest coin 200 times (two hundred), and then see how many times six heads or six tails appear in a row.

1. Use 0 = tails and 1 = heads.

2. In A1 enter =RANDBETWEEN(0,1)

3. Copy A1 down to A200.

4. In B6 enter =SUM(A1:A6)

5. Copy B6 down to B200.

6. In column D enter the bins. These would be the possible values that you would observe in column B.

7. In column E, enter the FREQUENCY function where the data is from column B.

How many different ways can the sum of six coin tosses equal two?

Answer 1

for steps 2,3,4,5,6

Prepare a sheet like below

get a sheet which looks like this

7. Now we need to enter the FREQUENCY formula, which is an array function

• select the cells E2:E8 (under the frequency column E)
• type =FREQUENCY(B6:B200,D2:D8)

• press control + shift + enter

You should see something like the following

Now the frequencies are populated.

We can answer the questions. (the random numbers in column A will keep changing, hence it is good to paste them as values)

how many times six heads or six tails appear in a row.

When 6 heads appear in a row, the sum should be 6. (value 1 corresponds to a head in column A)

ans: There are 13 times that the 6 heads appeared in a row

When 6 tails appear in a row, the sum would be 0 (value 0 corresponds to a tail in column A)

ans: there are 2 times that the 6 tails appeared in a row

How many different ways can the sum of six coin tosses equal two?

The number of different ways the sum of six coin tosses equal two is

ans: 15