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I know this is an extremely basic question, but I have a slight misunderstanding (?) regarding this question:

How many possible outcomes are there when flipping two coins?

At first glance, this is a really easy problem: 2 x 2 = 4!

But if I list all the possible outcomes:

{H, H} {H, T} {T, H} {T, T} 

I noticed that there are really three "distinct" outcomes:

{H, H} {H, T} {T, T} 

Is it wrong to consider {H, T} and {T, H} the same? Why or why not?

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    The answer to this question might be of interest: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/19850/how-to-explain-that-probheads-tails-2-probheads-heads-to-a-student2011-06-03

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