Chapter 4 Probability 1

Chapter

Probability
4
Simulating Coin Tosses
You can use Minitab to simulate the tossing of a coin. Label column C1 as Coin Toss.
The possible outcomes on each toss are ‘heads’ or ‘tails’. Assume a ‘0’ represents a
Head and ‘1’ represents a Tail. Click on Calc  Random data  Integer. To simulate
50 coin tosses, Generate 50 rows of data and Store in column C1. Enter a Minimum
value of 0 and a Maximum value of 1. When finished, click OK.

Minitab Manual to accompany Richard A. Johnson Statistics: Principles and Methods, 7th Edition
 Chapter 4 Probability 2

Column C1 should now contain 50 rows of ‘0’ and ‘1’ representing the outcomes of
simulated heads and tails.

To find the mean of this data, click on Stat Basic Statistics  Graphical Summary.
Highlight and select column C1 on the left side of the window to select it for the
Variables. When finished, click OK.

Minitab Manual to accompany Richard A. Johnson Statistics: Principles and Methods, 7th Edition
 Chapter 4 Probability 3

The graphical summary will display. In this simulation, the mean is 0.46. This means
that 46% of the simulated coin tosses were Heads. Since this is random data, your
simulation may differ from the one shown here.

Minitab Manual to accompany Richard A. Johnson Statistics: Principles and Methods, 7th Edition
 Chapter 4 Probability 4

Simulating Dice Rolls

You can use Minitab to simulate the rolling of two dice. Label column C1 as Die 1 and
label column C2 as Die 2. The possible outcomes on each roll are the values from 1
through 6. Click on Calc  Random data  Integer. To simulate 100 dice rolls,
Generate 100 rows of data and Store in column C1 and C2. Enter a Minimum value
of 1 and a Maximum value of 6. When finished, click OK.

Columns C1 and C2 should now contain 100 rows of values representing the outcomes of
each die roll. Since this is a simulation of random data, your results may differ from
those shown here.

Minitab Manual to accompany Richard A. Johnson Statistics: Principles and Methods, 7th Edition