Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-101/2/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 101 2 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
This is the simple symmetric random walk on the integers, starting at zero. It is recurrent: it returns to zero infinitely often almost surely, and in fact visits every integer infinitely often. To see the two-sided unboundedness explicitly, gambler's ruin gives, for positive integers ,Letting shows that is hit with probability one; the analogous argument hits every negative integer. From any state the same argument gives return to zero with probability one. Repeated use of the Strong Markov property then gives infinitely many returns and visits. ThereforeIn particular has no limit almost surely, and does not tend to infinity because of the returns to zero. In contrast, the strong law of large numbers gives almost surely, while the central limit theorem gives . These distinguish oscillation of the path from scaling limits of its probability distribution.
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