
Prove that the order in which one conducts explosions in a machine without decimals (or any machine, for that matter) does not matter. That is, for a given number of dots placed into the machine, the total number of explosions that occur will always be the same and the final distribution of dots will always be the same, no matter the order in which one chooses to conduct those explosions.
Hint: The total number of dots in the rightmost box is fixed and so the total number of explosions that occur there is fixed too. This means that the total number of dots that ever appear in the second box are fixed too, and so the total number of explosions that occur there is pre-ordained as well. And so on.
Question: The proof I outlined relies on there being a right boundary to the machine. If machines were circular, then I don’t know if the order of explosions matters. It would be worth playing with this!
(When can we be certain that dots will eventually land in a stable distribution?)