# Interview Questions VI: The Drunkard’s Walk

A drunk man is stumbling home at night after closing time. Every step he takes moves him either 1 metre closer or 1 metre further away from his destination, with an equal chance of going in either direction (!). His home is 70 metres down the road, but unfortunately, there is a cliff 30 metres behind him at the other end of the street. What are the chances that he makes it to his house BEFORE tumbling over the edge of the cliff?

This is a fun question and quite heavy on conditional probability. We are trying to find the probability that the drunkard has moved 70 metres forward BEFORE he has ever moved 30 metres backward, or visa versa. There are several ways of attempting this, including some pretty neat martingale maths, but I’m going to attempt it here in the language of matrices and markov chains.

Essentially, there are 100 states that the drunkard can be in, from right beside the cliff all the way down the road to right beside his front door. Let’s label these from 1 to 100, in terms of the number of metres away from the cliff, so that he starts in state 30. At each step, he transitions from his current state to either one state higher or one state lower with probability 50%, and the process continues until he reaches either the cliff or the door, at which point the process will cease in either a good or a very bad night’s rest. We call these two states, 0 and 100, ‘absorbers’, because the process stops at this point and no transitions to new states can happen. A markov diagram that illustrates this process can be drawn like this:

We can characterise each step in the process by a transition matrix acting on a state vector. The drunkard initially has a state of 30 metres, so his state vector is a long string of zeroes with a single 1 at the 30th position:

$S_0&space;=&space;\begin{pmatrix}&space;0&space;\\&space;\vdots&space;\\&space;1\\&space;\vdots\\&space;0&space;\end{pmatrix}$

This vector is probabalistic – a 1 indicates with 100% certainty that the drunkard is in the 30th state. However, with subsequent moves this probability density will be spread over the nearby states as his position’s probability density diffuses into other states. The transition matrix multiplies the drunkard’s state vector to give his state vector after another step:

$P&space;=&space;\begin{pmatrix}&space;1&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;\cdots&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;\cdots&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;\cdots&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;\\&space;\vdots&space;&&space;\vdots&space;&&space;\vdots&space;&&space;\ddots&space;&&space;\vdots&space;&&space;\vdots\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;\cdots&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;1&space;\end{pmatrix};&space;\quad&space;S_{i+1}&space;=&space;P&space;\cdot&space;S_i$

So, after one step the drunkard’s state vector will have a 0.5 in the 29th and the 31st position and zeroes elsewhere, saying that he will be in either of these states with probability 0.5, and certainly nowhere else. Note that the 1’s at the top and bottom of the transition matrix will absorb and probability that arrives at that state for the rest of the process.

To keep things simple, let’s consider a much smaller problem with only six states, where state 1 is ‘down the cliff’ and state 6 is ‘home’; and we’ll come back to the larger problem at the end. We want to calculate the limit of the drunkard’s state as the transition matrix is applied a large number of times, ie. to calculate

$S_n&space;=&space;P^n&space;\cdot&space;S_0$

An efficient way to calculate powers of a large matrix is to first diagonalise it. We have $\inline&space;P&space;=&space;U&space;A\&space;U^{-1}$, where $\inline&space;A$ is a diagonal matrix whose diagonal elements are the eigenvalues of $\inline&space;P$, and $\inline&space;U$ is the matrix whose columns are the eigenvectors of $\inline&space;P$. Note that, as $\inline&space;P$ is not symmetric, $\inline&space;U^{-1}$ will have row vectors that the the LEFT eigenvectors of $\inline&space;P$, which in general will be different to the right eigenvectors. It is easy to see how to raise $\inline&space;P$ to the power n

$P^n&space;=&space;(U&space;A\&space;U^{-1})^n&space;=&space;U&space;A^n\&space;U^{-1}$

since all of the $\inline&space;U$s and $\inline&space;U^{-1}$s in the middle cancel. Since $\inline&space;A$ is diagonal, to raise it to the power of n we simlpy raise each element (which are just the eigenvalues of $\inline&space;P$) to the power of n. To calculate the eigenvalues of P we solve the characteristic equation

$|P&space;-&space;\lambda_a&space;I|&space;=&space;0$

with

$P&space;=&space;\begin{pmatrix}&space;1&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;1&space;\end{pmatrix}$

This gives six eigenvalues, two of which are one (these will turn out to correspond to the two absorbing states) and the remainder are strictly $\inline&space;0\leq&space;\lambda_a&space;<&space;1$. Consequently, when raised to the power n in the diagonal matrix above, all of the terms will disappear except for the first and the last eigenvalue which are 1 as n becomes large.

Calculating the eigenvectors is time consuming and we’d like to avoid it if possible. Luckily, in the limit that n gets large, we’ve seen that most of the eigenvalues raised to the power n will go to zero which will reduce significantly the amount we need to calculate. We have

$P^n\cdot&space;S&space;=&space;\bigl(&space;U&space;A^n&space;\&space;U^{-1}\bigr)\cdot&space;S$

and in the limit that n gets large, $\inline&space;U&space;\cdot&space;A^n$ is just a matrix of zeroes with a one in the upper left and lower right entry. At first sight it looks as though calculating $\inline&space;U^{-1}$ will be required, which is itself an eigenvector problem, but in fact we only have to calculate a single eigenvector – the first (or equivalently the last), which will give the probability of evolving from an initial state S to a final state 0 (or 100).

$\inline&space;U^{-1}$ is the matrix of left eigenvectors of $\inline&space;P$, each of which satisfies

$x_a&space;\cdot&space;P&space;=&space;\lambda_a&space;x_a$

and we are looking for the eigenvectors corresponding to eigenvalue of 1, so we need to solve the matrix equation

$x&space;\cdot&space;\begin{pmatrix}&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;-1&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;-1&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;-1&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;-1&space;&&space;0\\&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0&space;&&space;0.5&space;&&space;0&space;\end{pmatrix}&space;=&space;0$

We know that if he starts in the first state (ie. over the cliff) he must finish there (trivially, after 0 steps) with probability 100%, so that $\inline&space;x_1&space;=&space;1$ and $\inline&space;x_6&space;=&space;0$. The solution to this is

$x_n&space;=&space;{6&space;-&space;n&space;\over&space;5}$

which is plotted here for each initial state

which says that the probability of ending up in state 1 (down the cliff!) falls linearly with starting distance from the cliff. We can scale up this final matrix equation to the original 100 by 100 state space, and find that for someone starting in state 30, there is a 70/100 chance of ending up down the cliff, and consequently only a 30% chance of getting home!

This problem is basically the same as the Gambler’s ruin problem, where a gambler in a casino stakes $1 on each toss of a coin and leaves after reaching a goal of$N or when broke. There are some very neat methods for solving them via martingale methods that don’t use the mechanics above that I’ll look at in a future post.

## 2 thoughts on “Interview Questions VI: The Drunkard’s Walk”

1. Wow, several extremely good points! I appreciate you crafting this posting and the remainder of your site is top notch!

2. This be done in a much simpler way. It’s a very simple phone interview question. Use Kolmogorov backward equation to solve it.

1/2 sigma^2 d2P / dx^2= 0
solution is p = (x-b)/(a-b) where b = -30, a = 70…answer is p = (x+30)/100 or 30% if x = 0. (start point). sigma = 1 coz he moves +1 or -1.