Question

A student wants to determine if pennies are really fair when flipped, meaning equally likely to land heads up or tails up. He flips a random sample of 50 pennies and finds that 28 of them land heads up. If p denotes the true probability of a penny landing heads up when flipped, what are the appropriate null and alternative hypotheses?

Answer 1

Answer:

For this case we want to determine  if pennies are really fair when flipped, meaning equally likely to land head up or tails, so then the correct system of hypothesis are:

Null hypothesis: $p=0.5$

Alternative hypothesis: $p \neq 0.5$

Step-by-step explanation:

Previous concepts

A hypothesis is defined as "a speculation or theory based on insufficient evidence that lends itself to further testing and experimentation. With further testing, a hypothesis can usually be proven true or false".  

The null hypothesis is defined as "a hypothesis that says there is no statistical significance between the two variables in the hypothesis. It is the hypothesis that the researcher is trying to disprove".  

The alternative hypothesis is "just the inverse, or opposite, of the null hypothesis. It is the hypothesis that researcher is trying to prove".  

Solution to the problem

For this case we want to determine  if pennies are really fair when flipped, meaning equally likely to land head up or tails, so then the correct system of hypothesis are:

Null hypothesis: $p=0.5$

Alternative hypothesis: $p \neq 0.5$