Alice the ant starts at vertex of regular hexagon and moves either right or left each move with equal probability. After moves, what is the probability that she is on either vertex or ?
2015 CCA Math Bonanza Lightning Round #5.3
Alice the ant starts at vertex of regular hexagon and moves either right or left each move with equal probability. After moves, what is the probability that she is on either vertex or ?
2015 CCA Math Bonanza Lightning Round #5.3
1. Understanding the problem: Alice starts at vertex of a regular hexagon and moves either right or left with equal probability. We need to find the probability that after 35 moves, Alice is at either vertex or .
2. Analyzing the movement: In a regular hexagon, moving right or left from any vertex will move Alice to an adjacent vertex. The vertices are cyclic, so moving 6 steps in one direction will bring Alice back to the starting vertex.
3. Distance and parity: To be at vertex after 35 moves, Alice must have made an equal number of moves to the right and left, which is impossible since 35 is odd. Therefore, Alice cannot be at vertex after 35 moves.
4. **Vertex **: To be at vertex after 35 moves, Alice must have moved 3 steps away from (since is 3 steps away from in either direction). This means the net number of steps in one direction must be 3 more than the steps in the opposite direction. However, since 35 is odd, the net number of steps cannot be 3 (an odd number) because the total number of steps must be even to balance out the odd number of moves.
5. Conclusion: Since Alice cannot be at vertex or after 35 moves due to the parity of the number of moves, the probability is 0.