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# Fair coin Problem | AIME I, 1990 | Question 9

Try this beautiful problem from the American Invitational Mathematics Examination I, AIME I, 1990 based on fair coin.

## Fair Coin Problem - AIME I, 1990

A fair coin is to be tossed 10 times. Let i|j, in lowest terms, be the probability that heads never occur on consecutive tosses, find i+j.

• is 107
• is 73
• is 840
• cannot be determined from the given information

Integers

Combinatorics

Algebra

## Check the Answer

Answer: is 73.

AIME I, 1990, Question 9

Elementary Algebra by Hall and Knight

## Try with Hints

First hint

5 tails flipped, any less,

by Pigeonhole principle there will be heads that appear on consecutive tosses

Second Hint

(H)T(H)T(H)T(H)T(H)T(H) 5 tails occur there are 6 slots for the heads to be placed but only 5H remaining, ${6 \choose 5}$ possible combination of 6 heads there are

Final Step

$\sum_{i=6}^{11}{i \choose 11-i}$=${6 \choose 5} +{7 \choose 4}+{8 \choose 3}+{9 \choose 2} +{10 \choose 1} +{11 \choose 0}$=144

there are $2^{10}$ possible flips of 10 coins

or, probability=$\frac{144}{1024}=\frac{9}{64}$ or, 9+64=73.

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