# How would I go about simulating conditional random birth 100 times?

So I have the following scenario:

Assume you have this organism that reproduces by itself. An organism either reproduces 0, 1, 2, or 3 organisms at a time. Assume they're asexual and reproduce only in sets of event. It can create:

no offspring with probability 11/32 1 offspring with probability 3/8 2 offspring with probability 3/16 3 offspring with probability 3/32

So, for example, an organism can create 0 offspring and stop creating forever, or it can create 1 offspring and stop forever, or it can create 2 offspring at once and stop forever, or it can create 3 offspring and stop forever.

How would I simulate 6 generations 100 times and find the average? I'm confused on the syntax. I feel like there's a lot of lists, tables, etc. to juggle and things to define.

I was thinking of doing something like this:

    X:=RandomReal[]
(*define some counter variable*)
(*Assume I start off with 1 person, so counter=1*)
(*If X<=11/32, counter=counter, 11/32<X<=3/8, counter=counter+1, etc.*)
(*That's generation 1)
(*generation 2 has new counter individuals, and I repeat the process until 6 generations, potentially do something like (for i = 1 to counter, do the if X rules again*)

Then stick on a bigger for loop from j = 1 to 100 at the top, print it, put it in a table, and average the table?


Does this sound reasonable? Can someone help me put this code to fruition? Also, does anyone know of a more efficient process?

• This problem lends itself to recursion, which you really should master in order to get the most out of Mathematica. It is also a good idea to tell yourself to avoid for loops as much as possible, you have one in your algorithm - from that alone I could tell that that's not how experienced Mathematica users would implement this, before I even knew the problem. – C. E. Apr 21 '15 at 0:10

nextGen[n_] := Total@RandomChoice[{11/32, 3/8, 3/16, 3/32} -> {0, 1, 2, 3}, n]

Table[simulate[10, 6], {100}] // Mean // N