There is a 3 n grid of tiles in a room, with a door on each end, as shown.

For each tile, two of its opposite corners are connected by a diagonal wall. A
proper room is a room with a path between the two doors.

(a) Find all n such that a proper 3 n room exists.

(b) In terms of n (assuming n fits the restrictions from part (a)), find the
probability that a randomly generated room is proper.

Solution: We start with a simple lemma.

Lemma: Add extra subdoors on every other vertical edge, as shown.

These doors divide the room into 2 3 sectors. We claim that the path made
by a proper room passes through each of these subdoors, and cannot cross
backward through a sector.
Proof: By basic trial and error, the subdoor is the only way to exit a sector
without crashing into a wall, shown in the picture below:

As for not crossing backward through a sector, we already know that each
subdoor is part of the proper path. Thus, the 1-unit-thick top row and the
1-unit-thick bottom row are isolated, leaving no room for a turn-back-turnforward movement.
Now that the lemma is complete, we can move to the main problem.
(a) By our lemma, a proper 3n room exists iff we can find a proper 3(n2)
room between the exit and the first subdoor. This is because the fact
that the 3 n is a proper room has already defined a path that passes
through the subdoor and then the exit. Thus, inductively, the 3 n case
is equivalent to the 31 case if n is odd, and 32 if n is even. Its obvious
that one cannot have a 3 1 proper room, and there are several proper
3 2 rooms, so a proper room exists if and only if n is even.
(b) Since a possibly proper room can be broken down into a bunch of 3 2
cases by part (a), then well start by examining the probability that a
randomly generated 3 2 room is proper. Below are the possible 3 2
proper rooms:

This is a total of 4 + 4 + 1 + 1 = 10 cases out of the 26 = 64 wall

10
5
arrangements, for a probability of
=
. Then, since a 3 n room is
64
32
n
made of 2 linked 3 2 rooms (by our Lemma), we have a total probability
 n/2
5
of
.
32