Hitting k primes by dice rolls
Let S=(d1,d2,d3,…) be an infinite sequence of rolls of independent fair dice. For an integer k≥1, let Lk=Lk(S) be the smallest i so that there are k integers j≤i for which ∑jt=1dt is a prime. Therefore, Lk is the random variable whose value is the number of dice rolls required until the accumulated sum equals a prime k times. It is known that the expected value of L1 is close to 2.43. Here we show that for large k, the expected value of Lk is (1+o(1))klogek, where the o(1)-term tends to zero as k tends to infinity.
This is joint work with Noga Alon (Princeton University and Tel Aviv University), Lucy Martinez (Rutgers University), Doron Zeilberger (Rutgers University).