Can anyone help with a maths question please?

[AudTheDeepAndCrispAndEven]

Hello and Happy Christmas! I'm doing some distance learning and have been given some maths questions which I am really unsure about. This is NOT part of the assessed element of the course so I am not cheating, honestly, just trying to learn. I've googled but must be thick because I still don't know if I am on the right track. Can anyone one help please?

It would help if you posted the question!

I'll try...

What's the question?

Indeed, I thought I would see if anyone was willing to help first though. I thought I might be the only saddo trying to understand maths today!

Question is about throwing 6 million 6-sided dice and how many would land on 6. There are three option:
a) exactly 1 mill
b) approximately 1 million
c) some other number

I've confused myself. At first i thought C as it is an entirely random process. Then i thought, due to the nature of the topic, that it is b. But I need to say why I think this. help!

Topic is isotopes and radioactive decay.

I’d say b.

The probability of a six-sided dice landing on 6 is 1/6.

The dice are independent variables, so you don’t need to worry about probabilities affecting each other.

So I would expect about 1 million of the thrown dice to show a six.

B approximately i million. I in 6.

So, b.

My guess would be B. An average of 1:6 chance of landing on a 6. But not exactly 1:6 as there will be some variation. So approx 1 million.

Thanks all, those are my thoughts too (phew). BUT then the next question is if 6 million 12-sided dice were thrown, how many would land on 12? I've come up with 500,000 as there are twice as many possible outcomes. Does that make sense?

B. Does your course have anything on "expected value", if so, it may be worth going over this section again. BBC bitesize is usually good for explaining things in simple terms.
www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zp8v4qt/revision/4

I’d say b. If you throw one six sided dice, the probability of it landing on 6 is 1 in 6 or 1/6. (6 possible outcomes). So if you threw 6 million dice, you would expect about one sixth of them to land on a six, or any other number that you chose. One sixth of six million is one million, but you wouldn’t expect it to be exactly one million.

Yes, your reasoning for the 12 sided dice makes perfect sense.

Yes, the odds are now 1 in 12.
So divide 6 million by 12 = 500,000.

Yes it’s b for the first one. You would expect to get around 1 million 6’s.

And yes for 12 sided dice you would expect to get 1/12th of 6 million which is 500,000.

Approximately 1 million, because of the size of the sample. The probability of throwing a 6 is 1:6. The larger the sample the more accurate your result would be. If you only threw 6 dice the answer would be C.

[quote User12398712]B. Does your course have anything on "expected value", if so, it may be worth going over this section again. BBC bitesize is usually good for explaining things in simple terms.
www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zp8v4qt/revision/4[/quote]
Not so far. I did a maths topic but this was not covered. But there've been a few things that have been sprung on me with course content with no warning or build up, eg quadrilateral equations! I'm getting good at not panicking!

Thank you all, it's a very long time since I learnt maths the first time around!

Nothing to add other than I agree with previous answers! The expected number of 6's would be theoretically 000 000 in your first question but if it was actually done you would get approximately 1 000 000.

Your answer for your next question is correct for the justification you gave - you have no problems! 😊

And 000 000 should be 1 000 000 obviously 🙄

@IGoWalkingAfterMidnight

And 000 000 should be 1 000 000 obviously 🙄

I knew what you meant!