Skip to content

Two walkers returning home with one always behind

Question

Two independent simple symmetric random walks run on the integers: Tort starts at 00 and Bort starts at 44, each moving ±1\pm1 with equal probability every step. Find the probability that after 1010 steps both are back at their starting points and Tort has been strictly to the left of Bort after every one of the 1010 steps. Writing the answer as

(ab)p−(cd)p2r\frac{\binom{a}{b}^{p}-\binom{c}{d}^{p}}{2^{r}}

with b≤a/2b\le a/2 and d≤c/2d\le c/2, find the sum of the squares of the six integers a,b,c,d,p,ra,b,c,d,p,r.

Short answer

638638. View the pair as one walk in the plane with diagonal steps; the gap Y−XY-X moves by 00 or ±2\pm2, so it can only reach 00 by landing on the diagonal. Reflecting across x=yx=y, bad paths from (0,4)(0,4) back to (0,4)(0,4) match paths to (4,0)(4,0), giving (105)2−(103)2220\frac{\binom{10}{5}^2-\binom{10}{3}^2}{2^{20}}. Then 100+25+100+9+4+400=638100+25+100+9+4+400=638.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

See the hint and the full worked solution in the question bank (free account).

Open the worked solution

Lessons behind this question

Start with a free lesson: Probability Fundamentals is part of a free topic. Create a free account, no card needed, to read it in full with worked solutions.

Read it free