Making a script that will generate a random "walker" that will walk along the x-axis randomly.

Alright, so basically I need to make a "random walker" that walks in either direction using a for loop. It can walk forward one, back one back one forward one, it just has to be random for a thousand times. Then I need to use comet to simulate the walk, and im just not sure how to set up this code. So far I have this. I need to plot the walk as a function of time. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

    %%Part 1
% Simulation of Walker
t = linspace(0,1001,50000);
x = 0;
d = randn(0,2);
for n = 1:1001
    if d == 0
        x = x;
    elseif d == 1
        x = x + 1;
    else d == 2
        x = x - 1;
    end
end
comet(x,t);

[John D'Errico]

You described a random walk that moves EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARDS. But your code seems to allow for staying in the same spot too at any step.

Which is it? You need to choose one.

Answer 1

[John D'Errico]

I'll guess:

n = 1000;
x = cumsum([0,-1 + 2*(rand(1,n-1)>0.5)]);

comet(x,0:n-1)

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

See my attached collection of random walk demos.