Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.0 AIME Find the answer

How many sequences of 0s and 1s are there of length 10 such that there are no three 0s or 1s consecutively anywhere in the sequence?

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

We can have blocks of either 1 or 20s and 1s, and these blocks must be alternating between 0s and 1s. The number of ways of arranging blocks to form a sequence of length nn is the same as the number of omino tilings of a 1byn1-b y-n rectangle, and we may start each sequence with a 0 or a 1, making 2Fn2 F_{n} or, in this case, 178 sequences.

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Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.