Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/ii/paper-1/26k/iii/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ii Paper 1 26K iii Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the natural urn filtration. At stage , put and . The difference becomes with probability and with probability . Hence its conditional next mean is . Since the next total is ,Adaptedness is immediate, and every is bounded by a deterministic finite number, so integrable. This proves the martingale property.
Nevertheless it does not converge to a finite limit on any sample path. The increments are or , because and . Both colours remain present, so and . Convergence of a real sequence would force its increments to tend to zero. There is therefore no almost-sure finite convergence, illustrating why the boundedness condition in the preceding part matters.
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