Fred the ant is on the real number line, and Fred is trying to get to the point 0
If Fred is at 1 then on the next step, Fred moves to either 0 or 2 with equal probability. If Fred is at 2 then on the next step, Fred always moves to 1.
Let e1 be expected number of steps Fred takes to get to 0 given that Fred starts at the point 1. Similarly, let e2 be expected number of steps Fred takes to get to 0 given that Fred starts at the point 2.
Determine the ordered pair (e1,e2).
You can track the probabilities using different case, i.e. Anty gets to 0 after 1 steps, 2 steps, 3 steps, and so on. This gives us e_1 = 1/2*1 + 1/4*2 + 1/8*3 + 1/16*4 + ... By arithmetico-geometric series, e_1 = 2. Similarly, e_2 = 1/2*2 + 1/4*3 + 1/8*4 + 1/16*5 + ... = 3, so (e_1,e_2) = (2,3).
