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Mathematics · Ch 11 — Probability Distributions

Discrete random variables

11.3.1

Discrete random variables

Definition 11.2 (Discrete random variable). A random variable XX defined on a sample space SS into R\mathbb R is a discrete random variable if its range is countable — it assumes only a finite or countably infinite number of values, every value having a positive probability, with the probabilities over the whole range summing to 11.

Note

A discrete random variable can be defined even on a continuous sample space. For instance, on S=[0,1]S=[0,1], the constant function X(ω)=10X(\omega)=10 for all ω∈S\omega\in S is (trivially) a discrete random variable — its range is the single point {10}\{10\}. Less trivially, on S=[0,20]S=[0,20] the two-valued step function

X(ω)={1ω∈[0,10)2ω∈[10,20]X(\omega)=\begin{cases}1 & \omega\in[0,10)\\ 2 & \omega\in[10,20]\end{cases} …