- #1
Pythagorean
Gold Member
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So, I'm taking an EE class and my teacher is terribly handwavy. She couldn't really explain this to me (not homework, lecture). I detect a fundamental problem in the math, coming from a science background, but it could just be my ignorance:
Here's her lecture:
physical setup: a continuous roulette wheel returns a random variable: o < x < 2pi
normalization:
int{Pdx} = 1, the x range is 2*pi, so for the total area to equal one, the probability is constantly 1/(2*pi) for every value of x.
here is where my red flag goes up. If x is truly continuous, wouldn't the probability of hitting any particular value of x be 0 since there are infinite values of x between 0 and x?
This implies to me, that x isn't continuous and that there is actually some delta-x instead of dx.
What is my issue here?
Here's her lecture:
physical setup: a continuous roulette wheel returns a random variable: o < x < 2pi
normalization:
int{Pdx} = 1, the x range is 2*pi, so for the total area to equal one, the probability is constantly 1/(2*pi) for every value of x.
here is where my red flag goes up. If x is truly continuous, wouldn't the probability of hitting any particular value of x be 0 since there are infinite values of x between 0 and x?
This implies to me, that x isn't continuous and that there is actually some delta-x instead of dx.
What is my issue here?