<P> For example, if the experiment is tossing a coin, the sample space is typically the set (head, tail). For tossing two coins, the corresponding sample space would be ((head, head), (head, tail), (tail, head), (tail, tail)), commonly written (HH, HT, TH, TT). If the sample space is unordered, it becomes ((head, head), (head, tail), (tail, tail)). </P> <P> For tossing a single six - sided die, the typical sample space is (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) (in which the result of interest is the number of pips facing up). </P> <P> A well - defined sample space is one of three basic elements in a probabilistic model (a probability space); the other two are a well - defined set of possible events (a sigma - algebra) and a probability assigned to each event (a probability measure function). </P> <P> For many experiments, there may be more than one plausible sample space available, depending on what result is of interest to the experimenter . For example, when drawing a card from a standard deck of fifty - two playing cards, one possibility for the sample space could be the various ranks (Ace through King), while another could be the suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, or spades). A more complete description of outcomes, however, could specify both the denomination and the suit, and a sample space describing each individual card can be constructed as the Cartesian product of the two sample spaces noted above (this space would contain fifty - two equally likely outcomes). Still other sample spaces are possible, such as (right - side up, up - side down) if some cards have been flipped when shuffling . </P>

The probabilities of all outcomes in a sample space add up to