The prediction of sequences

The problem of predicting the short-term future behavior of a sequence, after observing it as long as we please, so as to achieve a specified reliability against all possible sequences is considered. For a particular problem, namely, predicting when in a sequence of 0's and 1's the pair (1, 0) in that order is not coming next, a reliability of 3/4 can be approximated as closely as we please, but not achieved. This article appeared as a Research Memorandum of the Rand Corporation, RM-1570, 12 October 1955.