A fair coin

A fair coin is to be tossed 1 0 10_{}^{} times. Let i / j i/j^{}_{} , in lowest terms, be the probability that heads never occur on consecutive tosses. Find i + j i+j_{}^{} .


The answer is 73.

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1 solution

Mark Hennings
Sep 13, 2016

A "double-head-free" (or DHF) sequence of n n tosses is one of

  • a sequence of length n n built up from the blocks "HT" and "T",
  • a sequence of length n 1 n-1 built up from the blocks "HT" and "T", followed by a final "H"

It is standard that the number of ways of tiling a 1 × n 1 \times n chessboard with 1 × 1 1\times1 squares and 1 × 2 1 \times2 dominoes is F n + 1 F_{n+1} , the ( n + 1 n+1 )st Fibonacci numbers. Thus we deduce that there are F n + 2 = F n + 1 + F n F_{n+2} = F_{n+1} + F_{n} DHF sequences of length n n . Thus the probability that a sequence of n n tosses is DHF is F n + 2 2 n \frac{F_{n+2}}{2^n} In the case that n = 10 n=10 , this is equal to 9 64 \tfrac{9}{64} , making the answer 9 + 64 = 73 9+64=\boxed{73} .

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