Nick Tarasewicz

POW #1
Problem:
Eight people are sitting in a circle and each person possesses a single coin. Each person flips
their coin once. If everyone whose coin landed on heads has to stand up, what is the probability
that no two neighbors are standing after a single coin flip?
If we strip away the excess wording, this is a question about combinations. More specifically, it
is a problem about the number of combinations for a specific outcome of 50/50 probability. This
problem is challenging because of how many different possible combinations of getting heads
and tails there are for each person and because you have to find a way to manage those
numbers.
Process:
For this problem, I chose to work with four other students. With the aid of Kyle, we first found the
total number of possible combinations for this problem. The chance that everyone would flip
tails and not stand up is a chance per person; there are eight total people, so itd be ()8
chance or 1/256 probability that everyone would flip tails. This means that there are two
possible outcomes for each of the eight people, or 256 total possible combinations (28).
Because this problem revolves around the probability of different combinations of 50/50
chances, I suggested writing out all of the different combinations for each of the possible
outcomes for the number of people standing at each coin flip. We quickly realized that although
this is a reasonable method that would result in an accurate answer, it wasnt a very efficient
approach. Thus, we decided to work with easier numbers that could later be applied to the
problem. Instead of working with eight total people, we worked with four, making the numbers
easier to manage. A table was drawn depicting every possible combination of coin flips that
satisfies the problems constraint of not allowing two neighbors to stand next to each other: this
number turned out to be seven.
Because we knew that there are 256 total combinations for eight people (28), we assumed that
there were 16 different combinations for four people (24). I had the idea that if we are looking for
x/256 combinations, and we know that the answer is 7/16 for four people, then we can assume
that 7y/16y = x/256. This assumption can be made because 256 is the total number of
combinations for eight people, but we are working with only four people;that is, 16 different
combinations. This approach meant that 16 can be scaled up to 256 by raising it to a specific
power. If the total number of combinations can be scaled between, then it is logical to assume
we can do the same for the number of combinations that actually work by scaling them by the
same power. We then split the above fraction in half so that 16y = 256 and 7y = x. Because y =
2, that means that 7 = 49. This left us with the initial answer of 49/256. (See the figure below for
a visual representation. Click on the figure to enlarge it.)

However, something in our thought process just didnt quite make sense. When we looked
around at other classmates answers, they differed from our own. Although everyones approach
was different and everyone followed unique steps, people were still getting a different answer.
This seemed to indicate that the fault lies not with the majority, but with the minority (that is, our
solution). The answer could be incorrect because one of the plausible combinations that we
included in our calculations was the scenario when nobody got heads. However, this isnt a
value that can be scaled between four people and eight people, its just a constant outcome.
However, we didnt realize this at the time so we dropped our initial approach and started from
scratch. I feel that if I were to re examine this method while keeping the above in mind, the
output may have been more accurate.
At one point I walked into Kyles classroom and saw Dawsons methodology for the problem on
the table. It was an array of dot-circles with Xs drawn over some of the dots. I didnt understand
any of it or how it related to the problem. Knowing that something wasnt correct about my initial
methodology, I thought all night and into the morning about what I had seen. And then it clicked!
If you break down the single coin flip into how many different outcomes of zero, one, two, three,
and four heads that satisfy the problems constraint of not allowing two people to be standing
next to each other, then you can easily brute-force the solution. This is made extremely easy if
one visualizes the circle of eight people and draws an X over each person that gets a head. You
then write down the number of possible outcomes for each grouping, and proceed to add them
all up. (See the figure below for a visual representation. Click on the figure to enlarge it.)

NOTE: The number on the inside of the circles represents the number of combinations possible
with the number of heads flippedthe filled in dots. Each dot represents one of the eight
people.
Solution:
The probability that no two neighbors are standing after a single coin flip is 47/256.
Justification:
The solution above is known to be correct due to the nature by which it was found. Essentially,
we used brute force by writing every possible combination of coin flips that satisfied the question
and then added them up. Also, the majority of students did get 47/256 as their answer, despite
following different methods. If the answer is incorrect for any reason, it is because an error in
identifying plausible outcomes or basic arithmetic occurred.