Homework 1                                                                              Math 241/242 Fall 2008

 

Construct and turn in a spreadsheet which has named variables n, p, and q and implements 10,000 instances of a random walk on the set {1, 2, É, n} with absorbing boundary conditions and with the p being probability of moving left and q = 1 – p being the probability of moving to the right at any of the points sctrictly between 1 and n.

                        a. What is the probability of reaching 1 starting from 4 when n=7 and p=0.1?

                        b. What is the probability of reaching 100 starting from 4 when n=100 and p=0.1?

                        c. What is the probability of reaching 1 starting from 4 when n=7 and p=0.4?