Everything2
Near Matches
Ignore Exact
Full Text
Everything2

with high probability

created by Hykin

(idea) by Hykin (1.9 y) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Fri Jul 11 2003 at 0:10:12

"With high probability" (often abbreviated w.h.p.) is a mathematical concept common to computer science. It generally refes to a statement of the form:
With high probability, a set of N random numbers will contain at least O(N) evens.

What it means is:

For any p, there exists a k, such that a set of N random numbers will contain at least k N evens with probability 1 - C / np, where C depends only on p.
In less mathematically precise terms, the idea is that you can change the conditions slightly to make the probability of failure very very small.

The usefulness of this concept is from the power of the statement. The statement is parameterized to allow the probability to vary as necessary to prove other statements. Proving the first couple things in terms of "with high probability" may be a bit tedious, but it allows you to lax about proving other things. You can rely on picking a large enough p to make your statement simple to prove.


printable version
chaos

Random probability Stockholm Syndrome European International White Nights Nodermeet measure zero
big-O notation almost surely computer science
Y'know, if you log in, you can write something here, or contact authors directly on the site. Create a New User if you don't already have an account.
  Epicenter
Login
Password

password reminder
register

Everything2 Help

Cool Staff Picks
Little presents from the Node Fairy:
Islam rejects violence as a method to gain power
Concorde
Morton Feldman
Northern Ireland
Ultima Thule
Peking duck
Song Of Myself
Searle's Chinese room
The seizure I had last night
Hittite
Watching Karen laugh
Dead people are not sleeping. They are dead.
How to use a manual transmission
New Writeups
Ysardo
a brother to a sister(personal)
antigravpussy
your warm whispers(personal)
Clarke
Multiculturalism(idea)
aneurin
Earl of Landaff(person)
Heitah
Pseudocide(idea)
XWiz
Google Knol(lede)
Mythi
July 24, 2008(personal)
locke baron
The fall of Earth(fiction)
BookReader
Fear the Cold(dream)
Pavlovna
Kathleen MacInnes(person)
stainedglass
1(fiction)
kalen
Three "T"s(idea)
octillion369
Undead(idea)
archiewood
Ico(fiction)
Heisenberg
Why I love Everything2(log)
Everything 2 is brought to you by the letter C and The Everything Development Company