Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 3.7 AMC 10/12 Find the answer Canada

If aa and bb are positive integers and 2019=1+11+ab\frac{20}{19}=1+\dfrac{1}{1+\frac{a}{b}}, what is the least possible value of a+ba+b?

Pick one

Solution

On each of her four tosses of the coin, Jane will either move up one dot or she will move right one dot.

Since Jane has two possible moves on each of her four tosses of the coin, she has a total of 2×2×2×2=162\times2\times2\times2=16 different paths that she may take to arrive at one of PP, QQ, RR, SS, or TT.

If we denote a move up one dot by UU, and a move right one dot by RR, these 16 paths are: UUUUUUUU, UUURUUUR, UURUUURU, UURRUURR, URUUURUU, URURURUR, URRUURRU, URRRURRR, RUUURUUU, RUURRUUR, RURURURU, RURRRURR, RRUURRUU, RRURRRUR, RRRURRRU, RRRRRRRR.

The probability of tossing a head (and thus moving up one dot) is equal to the probability of tossing a tail (and thus moving right one dot).

That is, it is equally probable that Jane will take any one of these 16 paths.

Therefore, the probability that Jane will finish at dot RR is equal to the number of paths that end at dot RR divided by the total number of paths, 16.

How many of the 16 paths end at dot RR?

Beginning at AA, a path ends at RR if it has two moves up (two UU’s), and two moves right (two RR’s).

There are 6 such paths: UURRUURR, URURURUR, URRUURRU, RUURRUUR, RURURURU, RRUURRUU.

(We note that each of the other 10 paths will end at one of the other 4 dots, PP, QQ, SS, TT.)
After four tosses of the coin, the probability that Jane will be at dot RR is 616=38\frac{6}{16}=\frac{3}{8}.

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Source: CEMC, University of Waterloo, licensed CC-BY-NC-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.