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 e be expected number of steps Fred takes to get to 0 given that Fred starts at the point 1 Similarly, let f be expected number of steps Fred takes to get to 0 given that Fred starts at the point 2
Determine the ordered pair (e, f).
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 = 1/2*1 + 1/4*2 + 1/8*3 + 1/16*4 + ... By arithmetico-geometric series, e = 2. Similarly, f = 1/2*2 + 1/4*3 + 1/8*4 + 1/16*5 + ... = 3, so (e,f) = (2,3).
