Max hiking with a backpack and sun hat, smiling, in front of glaciers

Hi, I’m Max,

a Master’s student in mathematics at the University of Vienna, specializing in applied mathematics and scientific computing.

Do two drunk birds ever meet?

Theorem (Pólya, 1921). A simple random walk on \(\mathbb{Z}^d\) returns to its starting point with probability \(1\) if \(d \le 2\), but only with probability \(\approx 0.34\) if \(d = 3\).

So two walkers in space may never meet: their difference is again a random walk in \(\mathbb{Z}^3\). As Kakutani put it: “A drunk man will find his way home, but a drunk bird may get lost forever.”