Alec's sample mean bound
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Needs some work, like what is a random variable for which expectation and variance are defined? Can we have complex or vector ones for example?
Notice
It appears that this is actually 3 inequalities in one, which we shall name as follows:
- Alec's remaining probability bound - that for X a real and non-negative random variable, ∀α∈R>0[P[X≥α]≤E[X]α]
- Alec's deviation probability bound - that for a real random variable (possibly negative) X that ∀β∈R>0[P[|X−E[X]|≥β]≤Var(X)β2]
- Alec's sample mean bound (this page)
Inequality
Let X1,…,Xn be a collection of n random variables which are pairwise independent, such that:
- ∃μ∀i∈{1,…,n}[E[Xi]=μ] - all of the Xi have the same expectation and
- Alternatively: ∀i,j∈{1,…,n}[E[Xi]=E[Xj]], but note we need μ in the expression
- ∃σ∀i∈{1,…,n}[Var(Xi)=σ2] - all the Xi have the same variance
- Alternatively: ∀i,j∈{1,…,n}[Var(Xi)=Var(Xj)], but note again we need σ in the expression
Then
- For all ϵ>0 we have:
- P[|∑ni=1Xin−μ|<ϵ]≥1−σ2ϵ2n
- Note that the notation here differs from that in my 2011 research journal slightly, but σ and μ were present.
- P[|∑ni=1Xin−μ|<ϵ]≥1−σ2ϵ2n
- P[|∑ni=1Xin−μ|<ϵ]≥1−σ2ϵ2n
History of form
When I "discovered" this inequality I was looking to say something like "the chance of the sample mean being within so much of the mean is at least ..."
I didn't know how to handle |X−E[X]| (what we'd now call Mdm(X)) which is why I applied it to variance, and of course (X−E[X])2≥0 - the only condition required for the first inequality.