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Worked Examples · Example 5

Q.A fair coin is tossed 5 times. Find the probability of getting exactly 3 heads.

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Step 1 — Identify the binomial setup. Each toss is an independent Bernoulli trial with P(head)=p=12P(\text{head})=p=\tfrac12 and P(tail)=q=12P(\text{tail})=q=\tfrac12; the number of trials is fixed at n=5n=5. So XX = number of heads follows B(5,12)B(5, \tfrac12).

Step 2 — Apply the Binomial pmf for r=3r=3:

P(X=3)=(53)(12)3(12)2=(53)(12)5P(X=3) = \binom{5}{3}\left(\tfrac12\right)^3\left(\tfrac12\right)^{2} = \binom{5}{3}\left(\tfrac12\right)^5

Step 3 — Evaluate. (53)=5!3! 2!=10\binom{5}{3} = \dfrac{5!}{3!\,2!} = 10 and (12)5=132\left(\tfrac12\right)^5 = \tfrac{1}{32}, so

P(X=3)=10×132=1032=516=0.3125P(X=3) = 10 \times \dfrac{1}{32} = \dfrac{10}{32} = \dfrac{5}{16} = 0.3125 …

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