Andrew wants to experiment with probability. He tosses a fair coin 1,000 times and finds that he does not get heads exactly half of the time. What is the best reason why this might be the outcome of Andrew's experiment?

Answer 1

The most likely reason for Andrew not getting heads exactly half of the time is random chance. Even though a fair coin should theoretically result in heads 50% of the time over the long run, in a particular set of 1,000 coin tosses, there can be fluctuations away from this expected outcome due to randomness. This is known as sampling variability, and it can result in outcomes that deviate from the expected probability in the short term.