Slaying a regrowing three-headed dragon
Question
A dragon starts with heads and you must remove them all. Each attack does one of three things: cuts off heads, cuts off head (which always regrows immediately, so nothing changes), or misses and the dragon sprouts one extra head. Whenever the dragon has at least heads, cutting off and missing are equally likely. With head left, you cannot cut . If the dragon ever reaches heads you lose. What is the probability you win?
Short answer
. Ignore the no-change attacks. From heads you move to or with probability each, and from head you can only go to , so . Solving , , gives and .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
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