Timeline for What does one mean by a 'random variable' in the real world?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 25, 2022 at 15:57 | history | edited | mdewey |
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| Apr 30, 2020 at 14:32 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by whuber♦ | ||
| Apr 30, 2020 at 9:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackStats/status/1255784008077762561 | ||
| Apr 30, 2020 at 6:55 | answer | added | Fabian Werner | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 30, 2020 at 5:06 | answer | added | Cliff AB | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 30, 2020 at 4:38 | comment | added | Dave | 1) My (granted, limited) understanding of quantum mechanics makes me think that QM is probabilistic. 2) Even if randomness if purely a mathematical idea, my main point is that it’s useful enough, similar to how you’d model a tire as a circle even though you know that Michelin didn’t manufacture an absolutely perfect circle. (You’d model the car compressing the tire and flattening the tire where it hits the road, but I mean a tire on its own.) I do think that randomness should bother us, though. If we have identical initial conditions and don’t get identical outcomes, what the heck, nature?? | |
| Apr 30, 2020 at 4:32 | comment | added | Vyraj | Yes, I want to know the essence of what 'random variable' means in the real world and I ask for a counterexample to the 'given enough knowledge about an experiment there is not such thing as random' thought experiment. Since, in my view, if there is no such counterexample then no such thing as a random variable exists in the real world, only in mathematics. | |
| Apr 30, 2020 at 4:15 | comment | added | Dave | Do you meant that, with enough variables accounted for, we could determine with certainty how the die would land? I’m pretty sure this isn’t how quantum mechanics works, but even if it is, I’m not sure that it matters. The probability theorems about distributions and random variables are true. Even if the world could be predicted with certainty if we had enough variables, we won’t have them. However, the laws of probability and methods of statistics built on probability are useful. Remember George Box: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” | |
| Apr 30, 2020 at 3:05 | answer | added | AJKOER | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 29, 2020 at 22:23 | history | asked | Vyraj | CC BY-SA 4.0 |