Solutions for the Appendix 305

which you probably saw in high school and in Theorem 6.1.10. One way of
seeing this is the relation leading to Pascal’s triangle:
✓ ◆ ✓ ◆ ✓ ◆
m m 1 m 1
= + ,
k k 1 k
which expresses the fact that to choose k things among m, you must either
choose k 1 things among the first m 1, and then choose the last also,
or choose k things among the first m 1, and then not choose the last.
Suppose that
✓ the
◆ formula is true for all m 1 and all k, with the con-
m
vention that = 0 if k < 0 or k > m. Then the inductive step is
k
✓ ◆ ✓ ◆ ✓ ◆
m m 1 m 1
= +
k k 1 k
(m 1)! (m 1)!
= +
(k1)!(m k)! k!(m k 1)!
✓ ◆
(m 1)! 1 1
= +
(k 1)!(m k 1)! m k k
(m 1)! m m!
= = .
(k 1)!(m k 1)! k(m k) k!(m k)!
Now to our question.
Since the coin is being tossed 2n times, there are 22n possible sequences
of tosses; saying that the coin is a fair coin is exactly saying that all such
sequences have the same probability 1/22n .
The number of sequences corresponding to n + k heads is exactly the
number of ways of choosing n + k tosses among the 2n, i.e., 2n choose
n + k:
✓ ◆
2n (2n)!
= .
n+k (n + k)!(n k)!
p p
We need to sum this over all k such that n + a n  n + k  n + b n.

A21.1 a. For any x1 , x2 2 Rn , we have

⇣ ⌘
0  f (x2 ) = inf |x2 y|  inf |x2 x1 | + |x1 y| = |x2 x1 | + f (x1 ).
y2X y2X

The same statement holds if we exchange x1 and x2 , so

|f (x1 ) f (x2 )|  |x1 x2 |.
This proves that f is continuous.
If x 2 X, there exists a sequence i 7! yi converging to x, so
inf y2X |x yi | = 0, hence f (x) = 0. But if x 2 / X, then there exists
✏ > 0 such that |x y| > ✏ for all y 2 X, hence f (x) ✏.
b. There isn’t much to show: this function is bounded by 1 and has
support in [0, 1]; it is continuous, (that was the point of including 0 and 1
in X 0 ), it satisfies f  0 everywhere, and f (x) = 0 precisely if x 2
/ [0, 1] or
if x is in the unpavable set X 0 .