When "Brownian Motion" and "Bowel Movement" get mixed up...

... it's kind of funny.

Properties I Learned In Math Class On Brownian Motion (BM), with Explanations.

BY SCOTT LOWENSTEIN

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1. BMs come in two forms: "standard" and "multidimensional"

2. Law of large numbers: expected distance traveled during a BM = 0

3. Scaling: a scaled up BM is still a standard BM, it'll just take longer to get where you're going

4. Strong Markov property: the flow of BMs in the future are unaffected by BMs in the present after a stopping point has been reached

5. Law of iterated logs: duh

- - -

(From the ever entertaining McSweeneys.net)

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Uh, I don't want to be too much of a stickler about a joke but, isn't #2 spectacularly false? Actually, the other items are a little weak too. Eh .. not that funny for me I guess.

By cmtheorist (not verified) on 22 Sep 2009 #permalink

#2 is true if you are taking distance as a vector, not a scalar (i.e. although you will travel "X" distance, the expected final position is the starting point---i.e. the expected final position is evenly distributed about the origin).