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Grade 12Magical Mathematics[Interesting Approach]

Let heads means 1 and Tails means 2 while tossing a coin.

The coefficients of a quadratic equation ax2+bx+c=0 are chosen by tossing 3 fair coins.The chance that the roots of quadratic equation are non-real is?

a)3/8

b)7/8

c)5/36

d)11/36

Profile image of Chilukuri Sai Kartik
15 Years agoGrade 12
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1 Answer

Profile image of Mir Noaman Ali IIT-Roorkee
ApprovedApproved Tutor Answer15 Years ago

a can be filled in 2 ways(head=1 and tails=2) similarly b in 2 ways and c also in 2 ways so total number of ways = 8 let the probability that the roots are real is x and non real becomes 1-x let us calulate x first, x means it must have real roots  discriminant greater that or equal to zero b*2 >= 4ac of those 8 equally probable cases there is only 1 case( when b=2, a=c=1   when coin corresponding to a and c gets a head and coin corresponding to b gets a tail which satisfies this case so probability =1/8 hence x=1/8 so required answer is 1-x = 7/8       ....................... please approve my answer if you have understood the solution