Whenever that nearest neighbor is the person who told him the news, that branch of the transmission is closed, as there's no point in telling the person who told you, and there's no substitution of the second nearest neighbor.
- What's the probability that the only person to get the news is the one farmer Brown called himself, due to farmer Brown being his nearest neighbor's nearest neighbor?
- What's the expected number of people, besides farmer Brown, who will get the news before the transmission dies out altogether?
Consider the land where this happens an infinite plane, with each farmer a randomly placed point with uniform probability density.