When Chains Don’t Settle

Cycles and traps

An interactive lesson with 5 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Periodic chains rotate instead of settling; a little laziness fixes that.
• Reducible chains split into separate parts; the start matters.
• Absorbing states trap all the probability in the end.

Steps

1. Going round in circles
2. Settle quickly
3. Two separate worlds
4. An absorbing state
5. Periodic but fair