Walking the Plank
It was a sunny Caribbean day with fluffy clouds in a blue sky. A pirate ship was smoothly gliding along on a mild breeze driving its white sails.
The ship was Captain Hook’s and Jacko was walking the plank for insubordination. Jacko was blindfolded and had already drunk a jug of grog given him to send him happily on his way to the wet kingdom of Neptune. Jacko was standing on the very edge of the long plank, about to plunge into the waves.
Peg-leg, the bosun, was busy taking bets from the crew while his blue-winged, yellow-bellied parrot screeched “Take your bets, take your bets…” at full volume from his shoulder.
From previous experience, Peg-leg, an amateur mathematician, had worked out that after downing this amount of grog plank walkers would at any given moment step forward with a probability of 33%, or step backward with a probability of 66%. The length of the step was somehow constant. All this seemed to be induced by the grog mixture.
The basis for betting had been established by Captain Hook, who, being a humane type, had decreed that plank walkers who managed to step their way back onto the ship after drinking a jug of grog would be pardoned.
So, Peg-leg was busy taking bets from the crew as to whether Jacko would make it back on board the ship, or plunge into the laps of mermaids.
Jacko was about to take his next step.
What do you figure is the probability that Jacko joins the mermaids?
Tags: plank walk, random steps