Coin tosses are not 50–50

When people flip a coin, they probably think there’s an equal chance it will come up heads or tails. A team of scientists at the University of Amsterdam found that this isn’t always true. In a study, people tossed 46 different kinds of coins 350,757 times. The coins landed on the same side they started with 51% of the time. In other words, a coin that was heads-up before it was flipped was more likely to land heads-up too. The scientists think that when a person launches a coin, their thumb makes it wobble, causing the coin to spend more time with one side up than the other. Every person’s thumb is different, making the results vary. While a 1% difference might not seem like much, it could have a…

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The Week Junior US (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 212

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