Given 11 flips of a fair coin, the probability of getting a palindromic sequence is . What is ?
Details and assumptions
1.A palindromic sequence is a series of coin flips that are palindromic, such as TTTTT, HTHTHTH or HHTTHHTTTTHHTTHH.
2.The sequence does not matter (i.e TTTHTTT=TTTHTTT)
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It doesn't matter what you get on the first 6 flips because the palindrome starts to take shape from the 7 t h flip onwards. The outcome of the 7 t h flip should be same as the outcome of the 5 t h flip. The probability for this is 2 1 . Then the outcome of 8 t h flip should be same as the outcome of the 4 t h flip. Again the probability is 2 1 . And so on. So the probability of getting a complete palindrome is ( 2 1 ) 5 = 3 2 1 Hence, ( a + b ) 2 = 1 , 0 8 9