Question

Consider a collection of biased coins, each showing Heads with probability and Tails with probability , independently of the others. The coins are tossed and all coins showing Heads are collected together and tossed again. Write down an expression for the probability mass function of the random variable representing the number of Heads that turn up in the second round of tosses. Hint: Condition on the results of the first round of tosses using the “total probability" formula.

Answer 1

Consider a collection of n biased coins, each showing Heads with probability p and Tails with probability 1-p , independently of the others. The coins are tossed and all coins showing Heads are collected together and tossed again. Write down an expression for the probability mass function of the random variable representing the number of Heads that turn up in the second round of tosses. Hint: Condition on the results of the first round of tosses using the “total probability" formula.