A coin has no memory, so a long run of heads does not make tails more likely on the next flip.

The longer version

Each toss is a fresh physical event, and the metal carries no record of what came before. So the chance of heads stays at one half no matter how long the run of heads has been, because the past outcomes do not alter the forces acting on the next flip.

The belief that a tails becomes due is often called the gambler's fallacy, and it survives because random sequences really do produce clusters that look patterned. Balance is restored only by dilution: as more tosses accumulate, an early surplus shrinks as a share of the total, not because later results compensate for it.

Where this entry sits

This section collects odd corners of mathematics, from stubborn prime numbers to counting systems older than modern schools. Expect famous constants, probability puzzles, shapes that break everyday intuition, and numbers far too large to picture. The full list sits on the Numbers and Math page, where every entry is listed in order.