two regular 6 sided dice are tossed compute the probability of rolling an 8

1 answer

To calculate the probability of rolling an 8 with two regular 6-sided dice, we need to determine the number of favorable outcomes and divide it by the total number of possible outcomes.

The possible outcomes when rolling two dice can be represented on a table or a matrix, where each cell represents the outcome of one die.

The sum of the numbers on the two dice ranges from 2 to 12. To calculate the probability of rolling an 8, we need to count the number of cells that have an 8.

| Dice 1 | Dice 2 | Sum |
|--------|--------|-----|
| 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 1 | 4 | 5 |
| 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 1 | 6 | 7 |
| 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 2 | 4 | 6 |
| 2 | 5 | 7 |
| 2 | 6 | 8 |
| 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 3 | 2 | 5 |
| 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 3 | 4 | 7 |
| 3 | 5 | 8 |
| 3 | 6 | 9 |
| 4 | 1 | 5 |
| 4 | 2 | 6 |
| 4 | 3 | 7 |
| 4 | 4 | 8 |
| 4 | 5 | 9 |
| 4 | 6 | 10 |
| 5 | 1 | 6 |
| 5 | 2 | 7 |
| 5 | 3 | 8 |
| 5 | 4 | 9 |
| 5 | 5 | 10 |
| 5 | 6 | 11 |
| 6 | 1 | 7 |
| 6 | 2 | 8 |
| 6 | 3 | 9 |
| 6 | 4 | 10 |
| 6 | 5 | 11 |
| 6 | 6 | 12 |

From the table, we can see that there are 5 cells that have an 8 as the sum of the two dice.

Therefore, the number of favorable outcomes is 5, and the total number of possible outcomes is 36 (since each die has 6 sides, resulting in 6 x 6 = 36 possible outcomes).

To calculate the probability of rolling an 8, we divide the number of favorable outcomes (5) by the total number of possible outcomes (36):

P(rolling an 8) = favorable outcomes / total outcomes
P(rolling an 8) = 5/36

Therefore, the probability of rolling an 8 with two regular 6-sided dice is 5/36.