That's... Really, seriously, that's not how it works. Going to the binary example, I will do my best to break it down. You have a .5 probability of heads *or* tails on a coin toss, no matter how many times you have flipped it, no matter what comes up prior to the flip. So, we want to calculate the odds of flipping heads three times in a row. As such, we multiply .5 by .5 by .5. This results in a .125 probability, or a 12.5% chance. With me so far? Okay, now let's review the possible combinations of those three coin flips: Heads, heads, heads Heads, tails, tails Heads, heads, tails Heads, tails, heads Tails, heads, heads Tails, tails, heads Tails, heads, tails Tails, tails, tails That's 8 potential outcomes. Each of these outcomes is equally possible. If you can't see that, this next step should make it clearer. .125 multiplied by 8 equals... 1. As such, we have clarified each potential outcome and correctly identified the probability for each possible combination. They are each equally probable. As such, each time we flip the coin, regardless of prior results or the number of times we have flipped the coin, there is a 50% chance of heads and a 50% chance of tails [b]because each outcome is equally possible[/b]. It's math. It works out.