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2006 AMC 12A Problem 20

Problem 20 of 25HarderCombinatoricsProbability & StatisticsProblem-Solving Techniques

A bug starts at one vertex of a cube and moves along the edges of the cube according to the following rule. At each vertex the bug will choose to travel along one of the three edges emanating from that vertex. Each edge has equal probability of being chosen, and all choices are independent. What is the probability that after seven moves the bug will have visited every vertex exactly once?

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Solution

From the start there are 373^7 equally likely 77-move walks. For a walk visiting all 88 vertices, there are 33 choices for the first move and 22 for the second, since it cannot return to the starting vertex. Label cube vertices by three-bit strings. By symmetry, after fixing those first two moves we may take the first three vertices to be 000,001,011.000,001,011. A branch check gives exactly these three completions: 010,110,111,101,100,010,110,100,101,111,111,101,100,110,010. \begin{aligned} &010,110,111,101,100,\\ &010,110,100,101,111,\\ &111,101,100,110,010. \end{aligned} Thus there are 3⋅2⋅3=183 \cdot 2 \cdot 3 = 18 such walks. The probability is 1837=182187=2243.\dfrac{18}{3^7} = \dfrac{18}{2187} = \dfrac{2}{243}. Thus, the correct answer is C.
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