Skip to main content
1 of 3
Nate River
  • 6.2k
  • 2
  • 23
  • 99

Stick snapping process

Starting with a single stick of unit length, a point $p \in (0, 1)$ is picked uniformly at random along the stick and the stick is snapped, producing two sticks of length $p$ and $1-p$.

At each next stage, a stick is picked uniformly at random, and a point is picked uniformly at random along the length of that stick, and it is snapped.

Question: After n snaps, what is the expected length of the longest remaining stick?

Nate River
  • 6.2k
  • 2
  • 23
  • 99