SOLUTION: A coin is flipped four times. Find the probability of getting two heads and two tails.

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Question 1108079: A coin is flipped four times. Find the probability of getting two heads and two tails.
Answer by math_helper(2461) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Intuition says it should be 0.50, and that is unfortunately incorrect in this case.
There are +2%5E4+=+16+ possible outcomes.
Breaking it down into groups of two:
HH —> Only TT can follow this
HT —> Only HT or TH can follow this
TH —> Only HT or TH can follow this
TT —> Only HH can follow this
So out of 16 possible outcomes, only 6 have exactly two heads and two tails.
The probability of getting two heads and two tails is then 6/16 = 3/8

An alternative way to look at this: there are 4 slots for each of the 4 flips, and we want heads to occupy exactly 2 of them: C(4,2) = 4!/(2!*2!) = 24/4 = 6, and dividing by the 16 possible outcomes, that computes to a probability of 6/16 = 3/8.