Some basics in the science of probability. When you flip a coin the odds of that coin coming up heads is 1 in 2 or fifty/fifty That coin has a 50% chance of coming up heads. Suppose you flipped a coin 99 times and each time it came up heads - what are the odds that it will come up heads on the next flip?
Answer: fifty/fifty.
Do not---I repeat---do not listen to MrDante if you want to understand probability.
What are the odds that a fair coin comes up heads "99 times?" Well, it's simply 0.5 raised to the power of 99, which is about 633,000-to-1
Whoops! I forgot the
trillion trillion. :doh:
The odds of a fair coin coming up heads 99 times in a row is 633,000-trillion-trillion-to-1 against. This is close to being on the order of how many molecules of air there is in the area around you. The odds are the same as picking a single molecule out of the air, randomly. Possible? Yes, technically, logically, probabilistically, yes. But when odds become this unlikely, what becomes more likely is that somebody's cheating.
Your coin that came up 99 times in a row heads, I would bet all I own that it will come up heads again, and you would lose that bet half the time because you're so incalculably and inestimably stupid, and you'd tell your family when you came home broke, shrugging your shoulders, "The answer is fifty/fifty, and I made the right choice."