Math Prize 2015 Problem 19
Source:
September 22, 2015
Problem Statement
Sabrina has a fair tetrahedral die whose faces are numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. She creates a sequence by rolling the die and recording the number on its bottom face. However, she discards (without recording) any roll such that appending its number to the sequence would result in two consecutive terms that sum to 5. Sabrina stops the moment that all four numbers appear in the sequence. Find the expected (average) number of terms in Sabrina's sequence.