Help me understand this question -- "Three consecutive zeros" in a binary string

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r0bHadz
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Homework Statement


How many bit strings of length eight contain either three
consecutive 0s or four consecutive 1s?

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution


This might sound dumb, but would the eight bit string of all zeros satisfy the conditions on the question? I understand its asking for three consecutive zeros, but even if the entire string was all zeros, you would still have 3 consecutive zeros so I don't see why there would be a problem. If you guys don't understand what I mean, what about a string like 0000 0000 or 0000 1010 or 0000 1111 0000 0101 etc etc
 

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r0bHadz said:
what about a string like 0000 0000 or 0000 1010 or 0000 1111 0000 0101

All of those have three consecutive zeros, so they all satisfy the conditions. What about the question don't you understand?
 
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phyzguy said:
All of those have three consecutive zeros, so they all satisfy the conditions. What about the question don't you understand?

I just wanted to make sure if it would still be valid if it was more than 3 consecutive zeros
 
r0bHadz said:
I just wanted to make sure if it would still be valid if it was more than 3 consecutive zeros

Well, you'd have to ask the person who wrote the question to be certain, but I would interpret having more than three consecutive zeros as 'having three consecutive zeros'.