Given a square. Each vertex is connected to every other vertex. An ant is located at one of the vertices. There are breadcrumbs on every other vertex. I.e. 3 breadcrumbs, each at rest of the vertices. It will go to every other vertex with equal probability (⅓). What is the expected number of moves the ant will take to eat all the breadcrumbs?
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Your efforts? What have you tried. – Rushabh Mehta Oct 27 '18 at 14:05
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Very interesting, but what have you tried? – Parcly Taxel Oct 27 '18 at 14:05
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You could read about the coupon collector problem. This is an example, where the ant has collected the first coupon at the start. – Ross Millikan Oct 27 '18 at 14:07
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@RossMillikan , Hello Sir, I just read about the coupon collector problem and found the expected number of moves to be E(X) = 3(1/3 + 1/2 + 1/1) - 1 = 5.5 ......Is this correct?? – Abhishek Paul Oct 27 '18 at 14:21
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The $5.5$ is correct but the expression before it is not. You should not be subtracting $1$. It looks like you have understood the question correctly. – Ross Millikan Oct 28 '18 at 06:41
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@RossMillikan : Thank you Sir – Abhishek Paul Oct 28 '18 at 14:22