Talk:Random variable

Easy example???

I don't really think the example given was "easy". How many undergrads know what a Borel subset is?

Ragnar Schroder 17:40, 24 November 2007 (CST)

This is a mathematics article, so it should be defined the way it is in most standard math textbooks. Articles should not have to be in the style of "mathematics for dummies" only. Borel set has its own definition and the interested can find out what it is. Certainly math undergrads will know what a Borel set is (after all they have to take courses in topological spaces and measure theory). I am an engineer by training and I started with these "mathematics for dummies" understanding of things, but through the years I've grown to appreciate more precise/general definitions and found them to be more enlightening that those vague definitions I use to know as an undergrad. Of course one may add additional sections as a lead-in to give an intuitive explanation/idea of what a random variable is, but a more precise definition should be in the article, as well as an "easy" example to illustrate that definition.

Please feel free to add any additional lead-in section, but please do not change the original introduction and the formal definition. Random variables should be explained for what the really are (as measurable functions), not just some vague intuitive notion, after all mathematicians have worked hard to give them a precise notion and develop the formal theory. Anything else would just be fooling people. Hendra I. Nurdin 18:26, 24 November 2007 (CST)

Ok. Mileage may vary; none my schools required having any idea at all about any of these things for graduation, even for most math majors.

Ragnar Schroder 10:07, 25 November 2007 (CST)