Simulation – Getting Started: Coin Flips and Die Tosses

Two classic examples are flipping coins and rolling dice. These two examples provide simple, easy-to-understand situations that nevertheless provide ample opportunity for variation. Calculating the theoretical values uses basic principles of probability. Students often find programming and determining experimental values interesting.  

  • Flipping a Coin
    • Many introductory problems in statistics center around flipping coins. Given a fair coin, we know that the probability of getting head is 0.5. How many heads can we expect to get when we flip the coin 10 times? 100 times? This post illustrates how to write programs, run experiments, and conclude an experimental probability.
  • Rolling a Die
    • Rolling a fair die is in some sense a generalization of flipping a coin. This post shows examples of simulations about rolling various kinds of dies.