Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2010/paper-1/12/e/solution

Let be the meeting label. If , the forward-moving object has already crossed while the reverse-moving object has not yet reached it, so the forward object wins the race to . If , the reverse object passed first. If , the required event is exactly the special meeting from part (d).
These disjoint possibilities give
This includes the endpoints: for the probability is , and for it is , with the initial positions understood in the unwrapped convention.
Figure 1.
Example paths in a race between fixed success and failure targets
. Details.

New to topics? Read the docs here!