Practice (88)
back to index | new
Jacob uses the following procedure to write down a sequence of numbers. First he chooses the first term to be $6$. To generate each succeeding term, he flips a fair coin. If it comes up heads, he doubles the previous term and subtracts $1$. If it comes up tails, he takes half of the previous term and subtracts $1$. What is the probability that the fourth term in Jacob's sequence is an integer?
A bug crawls from $A$ along a grid. It never goes backward, it crawls towards all the other possible directions with equal probability. For example:
- At $A$, it may crawl to either $B$ or $D$ with a 50-50 chance
- At $E$ (coming from $D$), it may crawl to $B$, $F$, or $H$ with a $\frac{1}{3}$ chance each
- At $C$ (coming from $B$), it will crawl to $F$ for sure
The questions are, from $A$:
- What is the probability of it landing at $E$ in 2 steps?
- What is the probability of it landing at $F$ in 3 steps?
- What is the probability of it landing at $G$ in 4 steps?