The Cliff-Hanger
Questions
From where he stands, one step toward the cliff would send poor Homer over the edge. He takes random steps, either toward or away from the cliff. At any step his probability of taking a step away is 2/3, of a step toward the cliff 1/3. What is his chance of escaping? After using the simulation, try using an applet that perfoms a hundred, thousands, and even a million runs at once and that allows you to change the probability of stepping toward the edge.
Applet Source: CliffApp, CliffStat, Written by Nicholas Exner.
Copyrights
The image of Homer Simpson is Copyright 1996 Fox Broadcasting Company.
Cliff Idea and some text taken from
Mosteller, Frederick, Fifty Challenging Problems in Probabiltiy: with solutions, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1965.
Send
comments to
mste@uiuc.edu
Last Revised: 7/21/98