Related papers: The equalization probability of the Polya urn
In this paper, we consider a multi-drawing urn model with random addition. At each discrete time step, we draw a sample of m balls. According to the composition of the drawn colors, we return the balls together with a random number of balls…
We consider a generalized two-color Polya urn (black and withe balls) first introduced by Hill, Lane, Sudderth where the urn composition evolves as follows: let $\pi:\left[0,1\right]\rightarrow\left[0,1\right]$, and denote by $x_{n}$ the…
We consider a special case of the generalized P\'{o}lya's urn model introduced by Benaim et al (2013). Given a finite connected graph $G$, place a bin at each vertex. Two bins are called a pair if they share an edge of $G$. At discrete…
This article deals with some stochastic population protocols, motivated by theoretical aspects of distributed computing. We modelize the problem by a large urn of black and white balls from which at every time unit a fixed number of balls…
When flipping a fair coin, let $W = L_1L_2...L_N$ with $L_i\in\{H,T\}$ be a binary word of length $N=2$ or $N=3$. In this paper, we establish second- and third-order linear recurrence relations and their generating functions to discuss the…
A fair coin is flipped $n$ times, and two finite sequences of heads and tails (words) $A$ and $B$ of the same length are given. Each time the word $A$ appears in the sequence of coin flips, Alice gets a point, and each time the word $B$…
The Monty Hall puzzle has been solved and dissected in many ways, but always using probabilistic arguments, so it is considered a probability puzzle. In this paper the puzzle is set up as an orthodox statistical problem involving an unknown…
We introduce a natural variant of weighted voting games, which we refer to as k-Prize Weighted Voting Games. Such games consist of n players with weights, and k prizes, of possibly differing values. The players form coalitions, and the i-th…
We study several exactly solvable Polya-Eggenberger urn models with a \emph{diminishing} character, namely, balls of a specified color, say $x$ are completely drawn after a finite number of draws. The main quantity of interest here is the…
A basic experiment in probability theory is drawing without replacement from an urn filled with multiple balls of different colours. Clearly, it is physically impossible to overdraw, that is, to draw more balls from the urn than it…
We revisit the game in which each of several players chooses a pattern and then a coin is flipped repeatedly until one of these patterns is generated. In particular, we demonstrate how to compute the probability of any one player winning…
We start with a set of n players. With some probability P(n,k), we kill n-k players; the other ones stay alive, and we repeat with them. What is the distribution of the number X_n of phases (or rounds) before getting only one player? We…
I present a generalization of the Ehrenfest urn model that is aimed at simulating the approach to equilibrium in a dilute gas. The present model differs from the original one in two respects: 1) the two boxes have different volumes and are…
We consider a variant of the randomly reinforced urn where more balls can be simultaneously drawn out and balls of different colors can be simultaneously added. More precisely, at each time-step, the conditional distribution of the number…
We study a game in which one keeps flipping a coin until a given finite string of heads and tails occurs. We find the expected number of coin flips to end the game when the ending string consists of at most four maximal runs of heads or…
When a thick cylindrical coin is tossed in the air and lands without bouncing on an inelastic substrate, it ends up on its face or its side. We account for the rigid body dynamics of spin and precession and calculate the probability…
Imagine that there are two bins to which balls are added sequentially, and each incoming ball joins a bin with probability proportional to the p-th power of the number of balls already there. A general result says that if p>1/2, there…
While it is well known that a Turing machine equipped with the ability to flip a fair coin cannot compute more that a standard Turing machine, we show that this is not true for a biased coin. Indeed, any oracle set $X$ may be coded as a…
The MandM Game involves two players who begin with I1 and I2 MandM's. During each round, each player tosses a fair coin: if the coin lands heads, that player eats one MandM, and if it lands tails, the player does not eat. If, at the end of…
The symmetric random walk is known to be recurrent in one and two dimensions, and becomes transient in three or higher dimensions. We compare the symmetric random walk to walks driven by certain \polya\ urns. We show that, in contrast, if…