Yesterday we received problem sets for Statistical Mechanics. While for the most part StatMech doesn't warrant any comment, one problem in particular was... wow.
"A drunk lurches from one lamp post to another on his way home; at each lamp post he pauses for reflection before starting out again. Each time he starts he is equally likely to move towards or away from home. If the posts are separated by a distance a find the mean and the standard deviation of his displacement d from the starting point, after N steps."
One of the tutors' comment: "I was walking down Grassmarket last night and realised how typical this question is of Scotland."
I'm pretty sure that problem wouldn't see the light of day in UVA.
A Century of Quantum Mechanics
2 months ago
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