260.The Ballot Problem
★★★random walksCh. 2 — Axiomatic and Conditional Probability444+ Problems in Probability
Candidates and receive and votes respectively, with . The ballots are shuffled and drawn one-by-one, keeping a running tally. The probability that is never behind in the count (ties allowed, excluding the initial – state) is a function . Find .
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Map the count to a lattice path with / steps and count paths that never go below using the reflection principle.
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