Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-year-1-of-the-computer-science-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/discrete-mathematics-probability-and-continuous-mathematics/7/b/ii/solution
Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford 2023 Discrete mathematics, probability and continuous mathematics 7 b ii Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
At state , urn 1 has red and blue balls, while urn 2 has red and blue balls. Conditional on the state, the two choices are independent, each assigning probability to every ball. A red–blue exchange decreases ; a blue–red exchange increases it; equal colours leave it unchanged. Thus the conditional probability mass function isThe three numerators sum to . At or , the outward transition has probability zero. These are the transitions of the Bernoulli-Laplace diffusion model. The displayed formula is a transition kernel on every state; a literal conditional probability at a particular time requires the conditioning event to have positive probability.
New to topics? Read the docs here!