EXAMPLE 4.3

Many tosses of a coin. The French naturalist Count Buffon (1707–1788) tossed a coin 4040 times. Result: 2048 heads, or proportion 2048/4040 = 0.5069 for heads.

Around 1900, the English statistician Karl Pearson heroically tossed a coin 24,000 times. Result: 12,012 heads, a proportion of 0.5005.

While imprisoned by the Germans during World War II, the South African statistician John Kerrich tossed a coin 10,000 times. Result: 5067 heads, proportion of heads 0.5067.