Hypothesis Tests

 Data Collection and Analysis

This time you're going to collect and analyze your own data to explore the validity of an urban myth. Well, perhaps this particular "myth" hasn't achieved sufficient fame to be called an Urban Myth, but we'll explore it anyways.

It is well accepted -- and I'm told there are solid theoretical reasons that a physicist could explain -- that a coin tossed into the air so that it flips has a 50% chance of landing heads. It has something to do with angular momentum and, um, well, it's a well accepted fact. What is not so well accepted is what happens if you spin a coin on a hard surface and wait for it to fall. Does it still have 50% chance of landing heads?

Your goal is to determine whether spinning a coin and waiting for it to land still produces a 50% probability of landing heads. Here are some guidelines:

a) Describe the test you're going to use. What are the assumptions behind it? Do they seem plausibly satisfied by your experiment?

b) Decide ahead of time how many spins you're going to do. No fair spinning until you reach a conclusion you like!

c) Do the experiment; collect the data; summarize the data for us; and carry out a test.

What do you conclude?

You might want to use the chat feature or bulletin boards (if available)  to share your results and increase your sample size.