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First toss heads given no two heads in a row

Question

A fair coin is tossed nn times, and you are told the resulting sequence never has two heads next to each other. Find, as a function p(n)p(n), the conditional probability that the first toss was heads, and then give p(10)p(10).

Short answer

p(10)=55/144p(10)=55/144. Valid sequences of length nn satisfy A(n)=A(n−1)+A(n−2)A(n)=A(n-1)+A(n-2) (start with TT, or with HTHT), so A(n)=Fn+2A(n)=F_{n+2} (Fibonacci). Those starting with heads must start HTHT, giving p(n)=FnFn+2p(n)=\tfrac{F_n}{F_{n+2}} and p(10)=55144p(10)=\tfrac{55}{144}.

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

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