drunkard’s walk

A drunkard's walk is a mathematical concept used in probability theory to describe a path consisting of a succession of random steps. It's a type of Markov process, meaning its future movement depends only on its current position, not its past.1

Imagine a person starting at a point and taking steps of equal length, but in a random direction each time. The drunkard's walk problem aims to determine the probability distribution of the person's final distance from their starting point after a certain time. This concept is also related to Brownian motion, which models the irregular movement of particles suspended in a fluid. Economists sometimes use random walks to model short-term stock market fluctuations.12