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Pass the beer (Posted on 2013-04-09) Difficulty: 3 of 5
Suppose you and a bunch of friends are sitting around a table.
There are N of you.
You have a jug of beer in front of you, which no one has yet tasted.
So you take a swig of it, and then pass it to your left or right with probability 1/2.
Now suppose your neighbor does the same---he/she takes a swig of it and passes it to his/her left or right with probablity 1/2.
Each player continues in this fashion.
Because the beer is moving back and forth randomly around the table, it may be a while before some people get to taste the beer for the first time.

Which person around the table is most likely to be the last one to try the beer?
Is it a person near you or far from you?
(Assume that the jug is bottomless, and never runs out.)

Source: Math fun facts

No Solution Yet Submitted by Ady TZIDON    
Rating: 3.0000 (1 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
re(3): computer solution | Comment 4 of 8 |
(In reply to re(2): computer solution by Charlie)

Each time this is executed:
DO
        delta = SGN(2 * RND(1) - 1)


RND is running from the sequence defined by the "random seed".

How would RANDOMIZE TIMER prior to to each RND affect the result?


Then too, 11 of your 12 results are 9,000,000+ while the remaining (#6) is exactly zero.  Is that a programming issue?  A quick division suggests all values should range closely around 8,333,333.3 to be consistent with Ady's claim.


Edited on April 10, 2013, 9:04 pm
  Posted by brianjn on 2013-04-10 20:19:00

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