Alice and Bob on $\Bbb X$: reversal, coupling, renewal

Fuente: arXiv
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Autore principale: Grimmett, Geoffrey R.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Grimmett, Geoffrey R.
author_facet Grimmett, Geoffrey R.
contents A neat question involving coin flips surfaced on $\Bbb X$, and generated an intensive `storm' of `social mathematics'. In a sequence of flips of a fair coin, Alice wins a point at each appearance of two consecutive heads, and Bob wins a point whenever a head is followed immediately by a tail. Who is more likely to win the game? The subsequent discussion illustrated conflicting intuitions, and concluded with the correct answer (it is a close thing). It is explained here why the context of the question is interesting and how it may be answered in a quantitative manner using the probabilistic techniques of reversal, coupling, and renewal.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_00732
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Alice and Bob on $\Bbb X$: reversal, coupling, renewal
Grimmett, Geoffrey R.
Probability
60C05
A neat question involving coin flips surfaced on $\Bbb X$, and generated an intensive `storm' of `social mathematics'. In a sequence of flips of a fair coin, Alice wins a point at each appearance of two consecutive heads, and Bob wins a point whenever a head is followed immediately by a tail. Who is more likely to win the game? The subsequent discussion illustrated conflicting intuitions, and concluded with the correct answer (it is a close thing). It is explained here why the context of the question is interesting and how it may be answered in a quantitative manner using the probabilistic techniques of reversal, coupling, and renewal.
title Alice and Bob on $\Bbb X$: reversal, coupling, renewal
topic Probability
60C05
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.00732