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
ways
(2,4) we can arrange these in
ways
(4,3) we can arrange these in
ways
(6,2) we can arrange these in
ways
(8,1) we can arrange these in
ways
(10,0) we can arrange these in
ways
So:
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.