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A random variable (also called random quantity, aleatory variable, or stochastic variable) is a mathematical formalization of a quantity or object which depends on random events. [1] The term 'random variable' in its mathematical definition refers to neither randomness nor variability [ 2 ] but instead is a mathematical function in which
If a random variable admits a density function, then the characteristic function is its Fourier dual, in the sense that each of them is a Fourier transform of the other. If a random variable has a moment-generating function (), then the domain of the characteristic function can be extended to the complex plane, and
A more general case of this concerns the distribution of the product of a random variable having a beta distribution with a random variable having a gamma distribution: for some cases where the parameters of the two component distributions are related in a certain way, the result is again a gamma distribution but with a changed shape parameter ...
the product of two random variables is a random variable; addition and multiplication of random variables are both commutative; and; there is a notion of conjugation of random variables, satisfying (XY) * = Y * X * and X ** = X for all random variables X,Y and coinciding with complex conjugation if X is a constant.
A chart showing a uniform distribution. In probability theory and statistics, a collection of random variables is independent and identically distributed (i.i.d., iid, or IID) if each random variable has the same probability distribution as the others and all are mutually independent. [1]
The second fundamental observation is that any random variable can be written as the difference of two nonnegative random variables. Given a random variable X, one defines the positive and negative parts by X + = max(X, 0) and X − = −min(X, 0). These are nonnegative random variables, and it can be directly checked that X = X + − X −.
In more formal probability theory, a random variable is a function X defined from a sample space Ω to a measurable space called the state space. [2] [a] If an element in Ω is mapped to an element in state space by X, then that element in state space is a realization.
The probability distribution of the sum of two or more independent random variables is the convolution of their individual distributions. The term is motivated by the fact that the probability mass function or probability density function of a sum of independent random variables is the convolution of their corresponding probability mass functions or probability density functions respectively.