1.II.19H

Markov Chains | Part IB, 2008

The village green is ringed by a fence with NN fenceposts, labelled 0,1,,N10,1, \ldots, N-1. The village idiot is given a pot of paint and a brush, and started at post 0 with instructions to paint all the posts. He paints post 0 , and then chooses one of the two nearest neighbours, 1 or N1N-1, with equal probability, moving to the chosen post and painting it. After painting a post, he chooses with equal probability one of the two nearest neighbours, moves there and paints it (regardless of whether it is already painted). Find the distribution of the last post unpainted.

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