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11 votes
1 answer
393 views

Growing a chain of unit-area triangles: Fills the plane?

Define a process to start with a unit-area equilateral triangle, and at each step glue on another unit-area triangle.                     $50$ ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
193 views

A bound on the square distance of a random walk on undirected graph

Fact: Let $G$ be an $n$-vertex undirected graph and $(X_s)_{s\in \mathbb N}$ a stationary random walk on $G$. Then for every $s\in \mathbb{N}$, $ \mathbb{E}[d_G(X_s,X_0)^2] \le C s \log n $, for some ...
Manor Mendel's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
185 views

$\zeta(2n)$ and Levy processes

I am missing some steps in the final derivation of a probabilistic computation of the even values of $\zeta$. They show the Cauchy distribution is relate to a certian Levy process: $$ |\mathbb{C}_1| \...
john mangual's user avatar
  • 22.8k
3 votes
1 answer
202 views

Diameter of $n$-unit-vector closed scribble

Suppose one creates a random, closed, likely self-crossing polygon from $n$ unit-length vectors arranged head-to-tail, randomly oriented except for the requirement that their sum is zero (so the ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
784 views

Width of a random convex polygon

Consider a planar (2D) random walk comprised of N steps. Consider the minimum convex polygon enclosing the N points visited by the random walker. Assume the definition of the width of a convex polygon ...
toni's user avatar
  • 91
9 votes
1 answer
642 views

Twisted random walks

Suppose the points of two random walks in $\mathbb{R}^2$ are given the step number (or time) as a third coordinate, so that they become paths in $\mathbb{R}^3$. Here are several pairs of walks of $n=...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
555 views

The probability a self-avoiding random walk (SAW) on a rectangular or hexagonal lattice takes more than $N$ steps before trapping itself

What is the probability that a self-avoiding random walk (SAW) on a rectangular or hexagonal lattice is able to take more than $N$ steps, i.e. able to take more than $N$ steps before trapping itself ...
CKura's user avatar
  • 55
45 votes
1 answer
4k views

Rolling a random walk on a sphere

A ball rolls down an inclined plane, encountering horizontal obstacles, at which it rolls left/right with equal probability. There are regularly spaced staggered gaps that let the ball roll down to ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
17 votes
4 answers
823 views

Sweep-segment bot: Will this random walk sweep the plane?

This model is inspired by the random behavior of the Roomba sweeping robot. Let a unit segment $ab$ in the plane be placed initially with $a=(0,0)$ and $b=(1,0)$. The segment is first rotated a ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
2k views

A random walk on random lines

I am wondering if this random walk remains finite with positive probability. Start with three lines $A,B,C$ that are extensions of an equilateral triangle. Let $p_0$ be one corner. Generate a line $...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar