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Ways up five stairs in steps of one or two

Question

A staircase has 55 steps, and each stride covers either one step or two. In how many distinct sequences of strides can you reach the top?

Short answer

8. The last stride comes from one or two steps below, so f(n)=f(n−1)+f(n−2)f(n)=f(n-1)+f(n-2) with f(1)=1f(1)=1, f(2)=2f(2)=2. This gives 3,5,83,5,8 for n=3,4,5n=3,4,5.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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