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It's called “probability theory”, but is it actually probability theory? How can you have a course in “probability theory” that doesn't mention the Lebesgue int
by catnaroek 9y ago
It's called “probability theory”, but is it actually probability theory? How can you have a course in “probability theory” that doesn't mention the Lebesgue integral even once?
- rocqua 9y agoI took a course in "probability theory" that never mentioned Lebesgue integrals. Those came in measure and integration later. The course was about distributions, how product distributions interact, the central limit theorem, etc. That is, it was about turning stochastic models into predictions. Later we had a course "Statistics" that is about matching seen results to stochastic models.
- catnaroek 9y ago> The course was about distributions, How can you study these without knowing the Lebesgue integral? > how product distributions interact How can you do this without the Fubini-Tonelli theorem? etc. etc. etc.
- rocqua 9y agoBy talking about the operations without giving the rigorous backgrounds. Heck, you can do quite a bit with rieman integrals, and for e.g. binomial distributions you just need sums.
- catnaroek 9y agoThis is exactly what leaves many people feeling like mathematics is a bunch of unmotivated tricks and rabbits pulled out of a magician's hat.
- rocqua 9y agoThis was during a Bsc in mathematics. Like I said we later got the theoretical grounding. Starting with measure theory would be what leaves people feeling that mathematics is useless formal bickering.