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Expected disjoint blocks of five black cells

Question

Twenty squares sit in a row, and each is independently painted black or white with probability 12\tfrac12. A maximal run of mm consecutive black squares is counted as containing ⌊m/5⌋\lfloor m/5\rfloor non-overlapping five-blocks (so a run of 66 counts once, a run of 1010 counts twice). Let XX be the total number of five-blocks in the row. Writing E[X]=pqE[X]=\tfrac pq in lowest terms, find p+qp+q.

Short answer

13333611333361. Let Ck=21−k2kC_k=\tfrac{21-k}{2^k} be the expected number of (overlapping) windows of kk black squares. A run of length mm should count ⌊m/5⌋\lfloor m/5\rfloor, which is achieved by adding windows of length 5,10,15,205,10,15,20 and subtracting windows one longer (6,11,166,11,16); this yields E[X]=284785220E[X]=\tfrac{284785}{2^{20}}, confirmed by enumerating all 2202^{20} rows.

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