Background
When Galileo dropped objects from the leaning tower of Pisa, he noted that, for a given height and meteorological condition, the falling time was the same. This is one example of a situation in which the result of the experiment is unique and predictable. These types of observations are called deterministic experiments.
Now flip a coin. The result is not unique anymore. More than one outcome is possible; the result is now uncertain. These experiments go by the name of random experiments.
Statistics uses the concept of probability to measure the chances of different outcomes in a random experiment. By convention, probabilities are always positive numbers including zero. There are three fundamental probability axioms (Hogg et al. 2018):
The probability of an impossible outcome is 0.
The maximum value of 1 denotes outcomes absolutely certain to occur.
If two outcomes of the same experiment cannot occur simultaneously, their probabilities are additive.
Probabilities can also be...
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Olea, R.A. (2022). Random Variable. In: Daya Sagar, B.S., Cheng, Q., McKinley, J., Agterberg, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Mathematical Geosciences. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26050-7_429-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26050-7_429-2
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Random Variable- Published:
- 12 April 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26050-7_429-2
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Random Variable- Published:
- 24 August 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26050-7_429-1