Moment problemIn mathematics, a moment problem arises as the result of trying to invert the mapping that takes a measure μ to the sequence of moments More generally, one may consider for an arbitrary sequence of functions Mn. In the classical setting, μ is a measure on the real line, and M is the sequence { xn : n = 0, 1, 2, ... }. In this form the question appears in probability theory, asking whether there is a probability measure having specified mean, variance and so on, and whether it is unique.
Stieltjes moment problemIn mathematics, the Stieltjes moment problem, named after Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, seeks necessary and sufficient conditions for a sequence (m0, m1, m2, ...) to be of the form for some measure μ. If such a function μ exists, one asks whether it is unique. The essential difference between this and other well-known moment problems is that this is on a half-line [0, ∞), whereas in the Hausdorff moment problem one considers a bounded interval [0, 1], and in the Hamburger moment problem one considers the whole line (−∞, ∞).
Moment (mathematics)In mathematics, the moments of a function are certain quantitative measures related to the shape of the function's graph. If the function represents mass density, then the zeroth moment is the total mass, the first moment (normalized by total mass) is the center of mass, and the second moment is the moment of inertia. If the function is a probability distribution, then the first moment is the expected value, the second central moment is the variance, the third standardized moment is the skewness, and the fourth standardized moment is the kurtosis.
Random variableA random variable (also called random quantity, aleatory variable, or stochastic variable) is a mathematical formalization of a quantity or object which depends on random events. The term 'random variable' can be misleading as it is not actually random nor a variable, but rather it is a function from possible outcomes (e.g., the possible upper sides of a flipped coin such as heads and tails ) in a sample space (e.g., the set ) to a measurable space (e.g., in which 1 corresponding to and −1 corresponding to ), often to the real numbers.