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Expected squared distance after 16 random unit steps

Question

A remote-control skateboard starts at the origin of the plane. Every second it chooses a direction uniformly at random from [0,2π)[0,2\pi), independently of the past, and travels 11 foot that way. After 1616 seconds, find the mean of the square of its distance from where it started.

Short answer

1616. Write the position as a sum of 1616 independent unit vectors with mean zero. The squared length expands into 1616 terms equal to 11 plus cross terms ui⋅uj\mathbf u_i\cdot\mathbf u_j with zero mean, so E[D2]=16E[D^2]=16.

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