Combinations to Reach Nth Stair by moving up one step or two step at a time.

2010
25
Jan

There is a stair, and a person can go up the stairs, in steps of one or steps of two (ie Skip a step and jump). Find in how many combinations can a person reach the Nth stair.

Show the Answer

The answer to this can be found out by induction.

To reach the Nth Stair, we can reach by jumping one step from the (N - 1)th stair or jumping 2 steps from the (N-2)th chair.

If we denote Number of Ways of reach N as F(N)

F(N) = F(N-1) + F(N-2).

Does that ring any bells ?

It is the general form of the Nth term of the Fibonacci sequence.

So to reach the Nth stair, the (N+1)th number in the Fibonacci sequence is the total Number of combination, if the sequence starts from 0 as shown below.
F(0) = 0
F(1) = 1
F(2) = 1
F(3) = 2
etc...

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