Tagged Questions

Questions about performing probabilistic calculations, especially those concerned with the Mathematica commands Probability, Expectation and the various functions related to distributions such as NormalDistribution, CDF, PDF etc.

1answer
707 views

RandomVariate from 2-dimensional probability distribution

A probability distribution can be created in Mathematica (I am using 8.0.1) with e.g. ...
6answers
968 views

Efficient way to generate random points with a predefined lower bound on their pairwise Euclidean distance

Using Mathematica what is an efficient way to generate a list of $n$ random two dimensional points $\{x_i,y_i\}$ where $i=1,...,n$ so that no two points $p_1$ and $p_2$ in the list has an Euclidean ...
1answer
288 views

RandomVariate returns values outside the support of a PDF

Let $X$ be a random variable with pdf: dist = ProbabilityDistribution[1/(Abs[x]*Log[Abs[x]]^2), {x, -E^-2, E^-2}] Here are some pseudo-random drawings from it: ...
3answers
585 views

What is the average of rolling two dice and only taking the value of the higher dice roll?

I am referencing to this question on mathunderflow: What is the average of rolling two dice and only taking the value of the higher dice roll? Now I tried: ...
3answers
300 views

Simulate a simple spinner

I'm teaching some simple ideas in probability to students in grade 7. The "spinner" below works, but I'm wondering how I could make it just a bit more realistic by having it actually "spin" around a ...
1answer
386 views

How to compute the inverse CDF properly?

I want to compute the CDF and inverse CDF of the hyperbolic distribution: α = 2; β = 3/2; x = -3; u = N[CDF[HyperbolicDistribution[α, β, 1, 0], x], 30] The ...
2answers
506 views

Obtaining joint distributions and conditional distributions using Mathematica

I have two multivariate Gaussian distributions $p(x)$ and $p(z)$ with mean vectors $m_x$ and $m_z$, and covariance matrices $\Sigma_x$ and $\Sigma_z$. my model is a simple linear model $x = W z+n$ ...
6answers
853 views

2D Gaussian distribution of squares coordinates

I would like to imitate the structure of this great painting from Ellsworth Kelly in Mathematica. Yet with all the colored squares in Black and the beige one in white. Below is what I have wrote to ...
4answers
366 views

How do I solve this probability problem with Probability？

Consider a stick of length 1. Pick two points uniformly at random on the stick, and break the stick at those points. What is the probability that the three segments obtained in this way form a ...
4answers
292 views

Extracting equations from Piecewise expressions

Say I have a PDF: PDF[LogNormalDistribution[1.75, 0.65], x] Calculating it, Mathematica gives me an expression that looks like this: I want to extract the ...
2answers
815 views

How to calculate the mode of a probability distribution

I was wondering if there is any command to get the mode of the probability distributions. Calculating manually, the mode is (alpha-1)/(alpha+beta-2) While the mean, median or variance of the beta ...
1answer
126 views

NExpectation behaves oddly with EmpiricalDistribution

My question concerns the usage of NExpectation and Expectation and why I see the behavior I see in the following example. First ...
3answers
614 views

How to generate a RandomVariate of a custom distribution?

I'm trying to generate a pseudorandom variate out of a custom distribution. Suppose I want define a custom distribution, and for the sake of simplicity I define a Poisson distribution (the ...
1answer
331 views

Recommended book on random processes to understand new functionality in Mathematica 9?

I am interested in exploring the new functionality on random processes available in Mathematica 9, but I am not familiar with all of the underlying mathematics. Could you recommend a book that ...
3answers
450 views

Probability problem — Rube Goldberg solution?

A user posted this question on StackOverflow which was closed as off topic: 3 people are playing a game with a standard 52 card deck. Each player is given 2 cards each, possible cards and their ...
2answers
337 views

Expected Value - Mathematica

I would appreciate if one could help me with the following Mathematica problem: Assume $X$ is an exponential random variable with unit mean ($f_X(x)=e^{-x}$, $x>0$). I want to calculate expected ...
1answer
302 views

Probability and distribution from actual data

Let's say I have some data from a real world system: ...
1answer
235 views

Random variables with transformed discrete distributions cannot be applied to Probability[] function?

I have two discrete uniform distributions over same support: Dx = DiscreteUniformDistribution[{-8, 8}]; Dy = DiscreteUniformDistribution[{-8, 8}]; I use ...
1answer
333 views

How do I calculate the probability of reaching mean residual life

I need to understand the Survival Analysis concept of "mean residual life (MRL)" and calculating probabilities for reaching it. From another discussion: The MRL at time t is the mean additional ...
2answers
1k views

Function to compute the probability of exactly one event occurring out of N independent events

Is there a built in function (or a function in one of the standard packages) that allows you to compute the probability of exactly one event occurring out of some known set of probabilities for N ...
1answer
352 views

Mathematica Package for Bayesian Networks

Are there any packages that allow the simulation of Bayesian Networks with Mathematica? I found what seemed to be a promising package (Dynamics) on a Brown University URL, ...
4answers
248 views

Probability: proportion of 1000 random lists for x that contain the same nrs

Give a function which calculates for each x a random list of birthdays (which can be x=1 to x=365) birthdays[x_] := RandomInteger[{1, 365}, x] is my answer. ...
2answers
130 views

How to find the variance under the assumption that x follows some probability distribution

I am aware that we can find the expectation under the assumption that x follows some probability distribution, something like this: ...
3answers
290 views

Graphical Plots of PDF and CDF

I have a joint density and distribution function that I want to plot in a meaningful way, (i.e., want to be able to see how the functions behaves as changes in x and y happen simultaneously. If ...
1answer
151 views

Reproducing a graphic on Jensen's inequality for the probabilistic case

I am trying to reproduce the following graph on Jensen's inequality for the probabilistic case (source: wikipedia) but with the exponential function as Y, the normal distribution on the X-axis and ...
1answer
116 views

Combinations which do not have elements in common

I can choose 2 letters from the four letters $\{A,B,C,D\}$ in 6 combinations using the combination formula $$\frac{n!}{ r! (n-r)!}$$ ...
1answer
224 views

Different results for MaximumLikelihood depending on method?

When I used this command: ...
0answers
95 views

Speeding up multilinear PRA branch-and-bound algorithm with worst-case exponential time scenario with respect to basic events

The algorithm is a branch-and-bound algorithm that calculates dominances for PRA, probalistic risk assessment. The task was to find faster ways to do it in numerical software such as Matlab but we ...
2answers
153 views

Empirical Cumulative Distribution Function

I have a data set of the form $d=\{(y_1,x_1),(y_2,x_2)...(y_n,x_n)\}$ for a large $n$. A non-parametric plot of this data (a scatter plot where all observations are sorted along $x$ and joined with a ...
1answer
118 views

Expectation of CauchyDistribution

I've noticed this strange behavior and I'm wondering if it's a bug. I define a Cauchy distribution: c = CauchyDistribution[0, 1]; If I evaluate ...
0answers
83 views

shortest paths in probabilistically weighted edges? [duplicate]

I understand Mathematica can find shortest paths. However, is it also able to find the most probable paths? I mean this is a case where edges are given probabilistic wights (from 0 to 1) and the most ...
0answers
85 views

ProbabilityDistribution PDF on boundary points

I would like to evaluate the PDF of a custom ProbabilityDistribution at the min and max values. However, PDF[...] returns 0 at ...
4answers
120 views

Descriptive statistics of two events

I am trying to use the descriptive statistics feature of Mathematica to answer the following question: suppose I have two events, A and B, whose occurrence is described by a normal distribution around ...
3answers
411 views

Some questions about random numbers

How can I get non-repeating random numbers from Mathematica 8? How can I know which distribution the numbers I get are? Can I choose the distribution I want together with the non-repeating random ...
1answer
123 views

My Data has negative and positive numbers, can I still use it to get the PDF?

I have data that reflects the arrival time of a flight. {3, -2, 16, 13, -6, 5, 4, -7, 7, 0……..n} this is for 8:45am and has 150 elements "arrivals" The positive values represent the time in minutes ...
2answers
295 views

Total Variation Distance of probability matrix

How can I calculate the Total Variation Distance of a transition Matrix? is there any built in function? I've searched all documentation and haven;t found anything. ** More information: Let me try ...
1answer
143 views

Calculate variance of random walk?

How can I symbolically calculate the variance of the following random walk in Mathematica? Given several discrete random variables such that $p(Z_i=1-2k)=p$, where $k$ is a small real number, and ...
1answer
98 views

Safe values of $\mu$ and $\sigma$ when randomly sampling from a Log-Normal Distribution?

I believe I'm obtaining overflow errors when randomly sampling from a log-normal distribution with the command: RandomVariate[LogNormalDistribution[μ, σ], 1] ...
1answer
99 views

PDF on TransformedDistribution of two BinomialDistribution too slow

I'd been doing my own convolutions of distributions for some calculations, decided to use built-ins. With ...
0answers
53 views

integral of inverse distribution function

Can Mathematica solve the following problem? The parameter of interests is $\alpha$. Let $G(y)$ be the distribution function of $y$. (e.g. $G$ is a lognormal distribution function with given ...
1answer
155 views

Trying to plot this probability

Can anyone help me plot this? log P(X >= x) = alpha logx x=0.001 + k(0.001) k= 0, ..., 100 I can't figure out the coding for this.. I've been trying this for a while, and can't seem to figure it ...
1answer
218 views

Solving derivative of cumulative normal distribution log likelihood

I am a newbie and I'm trying to use Mathematica to obtain the symbolic Maximum Likelihood Estimation for a cumulative normal distribution. So far I have reached the step where I have the derivative of ...
1answer
218 views

How can an InverseQuantile or an interval valued Quantile function be implemented in Mathematica?

Quantile[] is the workhorse method in robust data analysis and statistics (see, eg Koenker's Quantile Regression). However, it should be complemented by an ...
0answers
22 views

Probability of a deck of cards of 8 blue and 5 white [migrated]

A deck of cards consists of 8 blue cards and 5 white cards. A simple random sample (random draws without replacement) of 6 cards is selected. What is the chance that one of the colors appears twice as ...
2answers
174 views

Calculate one-tailed critical point from a probability distribution

I would like to calculate the numerical value of $\xi\in\mathbb{R}_{\geq0}$$$P(|U|<\xi)=0.95$$ where$U\$ is standard-normal distributed. How may I do that in Mathematica?
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