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No single-colour rectangle on a 12-gon

Question

The twelve vertices of a regular dodecagon are each coloured red or blue independently with equal probability. Call a rectangle monochromatic if its four corners are vertices of the dodecagon and all four have the same colour. What is the probability that no monochromatic rectangle exists?

Short answer

29/12829/128. Rectangles inscribed in the dodecagon are exactly pairs of diameters, so one appears iff two diametrically opposite pairs are both red-red or both blue-blue. Counting the 66 opposite pairs: no single-colour pair gives 262^6, one gives 6⋅2⋅256\cdot2\cdot2^5, one red-red plus one blue-blue gives 6⋅5⋅246\cdot5\cdot2^4, for 928928 colourings out of 2122^{12}, i.e. 29128\tfrac{29}{128}.

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

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