First toss heads given no two heads in a row
Question
A fair coin is tossed times, and you are told the resulting sequence never has two heads next to each other. Find, as a function , the conditional probability that the first toss was heads, and then give .
Short answer
. Valid sequences of length satisfy (start with , or with ), so (Fibonacci). Those starting with heads must start , giving and .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
- Worked Examples — Probability Trees, Monty Hall, and Bayesian Updating
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
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