Jessica is about to walk a flight 10 stairs. She can take either one or two stairs at a time. How many different ways can she walk up the flight of stairs?
The answer is 89, just not sure how
This question is very similar to a pervious perms and combs q on this website (I think involving coins?)
The question can be rewritten as:
where x is the number of times she takes 1 stair and y is the number of times she takes 2 stairs.
Now simply list all integers x and y that satisfy this equation:
(0,5) we can arrange these in
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ways
(2,4) we can arrange these in
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ways
(4,3) we can arrange these in
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ways
(6,2) we can arrange these in
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ways
(8,1) we can arrange these in
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ways
(10,0) we can arrange these in
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ways
So:
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i.e. the 11th fibonacci number.
This result can be generalised for 2n steps to yield the cool identity:
Ill leave an odd number of steps i.e. 2n+1 steps as an exercise for the reader.