An extremal problem related to probability

Autor: Dennis C. Russell, Jürg Rätz
Rok vydání: 1987
Předmět:
Zdroj: Aequationes Mathematicae. 34:316-324
ISSN: 1420-8903
0001-9054
DOI: 10.1007/bf01830681
Popis: We consider a walk from a stateA1 to a stateAn+1 in which the probability of remaining atA i isp i , and the probability of progressing fromA i toAi+1 is 1 −p i . The probabilityW nk of reachingAn+1 fromA1 in exactlyn + k steps can then be expressed as a polynomial of degreen + k in then variablesp1,⋯,p n . We determine the maximum value ofW nk and the (unique) choice (p1,⋯,p n ) for which this extremum occurs.
Databáze: OpenAIRE