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Chapter 4: E4.4 Solution

Working problems is a crucial part of learning mathematics. No one can learn topology merely by poring over the definitions, theorems, and examples that are worked out in the text. One must work part of it out for oneself. To provide that opportunity is the purpose of the exercises.
James R. Munkres
Suppose that a coin with probability of heads is tossed repeatedly. Let be the event that a sequence of (or more) consecutive heads occurs amongst tosses numbered . Prove that Hint. Let be the event that there are consecutive heads beginning at toss numbered . Now make a simple use of the inclusion-exclusion formulae (Lemma 1.9).
Let be the event that there are heads starting from toss . Then, , and so that for , and, by BC1, .
Regarding the second part of the statement, I am not sure how we can use the inclusion-exclusion formula, especially because if we consider it for events , the sum of the first two terms to estimate the probability from below becomes negative for large . However, consider events for and . These events are independent, implies . Further, for , hence, by BC2, , and .