11/29/2017 AoPS Community

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High School Olympiads J

Hard Counting B N
counting highschoolmath Strings L
G
Source: LMAO

Today at 7:45 AM #1
ccx09
Abra the magician is randomly creating letters A, B, C (with his wand) by
427 posts
chance, with each letter from A to C having equal probability. He records
each letter down as he generates them. Each second he generates a
new letter. The expected number of seconds that passes before he first
sees the string can be written in the form

where is a prime and are distinct integers. Find

Note that the answer is not simply

This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by ccx09, 5 hours ago
Reason: C

5 hours ago #2
szhu7927
The is supposed to be a right? And what about the and ?...
98 posts
This post has been edited 2 times. Last edited by szhu7927, 5 hours ago

5 hours ago #3
ccx09
Um, what? Sure, but what do you mean?
427 posts

an hour ago #4
annoynymous
38 posts
z ccx09 wrote:
Um, what? Sure, but what do you mean?

The magician cannot make and , hence the chance of this string
is zero.
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