statistics question

[Kuciwalker]

What does X refer to? I've never encountered the symbol before.

Context: I'm supposed to find the posterior distribution of theta given X for a certain prior distribution of theta and the distribution of X.

[Verto]

What a noob.

[b etor]

average of stuff? idk.

[Kuciwalker]

X with a line over it usually denotes the sample mean, else that would have been my guess. It can't been the min or max element, either, because my instructor's notation for those is X sub 1 and X sub n, respectively.

[b etor]

Maybe it's just a regular x and he just underlined it to trick you.

[SlowwHand]

Mean.

[Kuciwalker]

Shouldn't be. In the previous problem he used the notation g(theta | X = x). Using g(theta | X) for the same thing would be redundant.

[b etor]

That means absolutely nothing to me. Only juniors and seniors can take Statistics at my school.

[SlowwHand]

I hate math. I think it has to do with nonlinear math and new theories of computation. Ask KH. He's a dweeb.

[b etor]

I love math. With the stuff I know, I still think he underlined it to trick you.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Ask KH.

That was kind of the point of this thread. Well, KH, LT, etc.

[SlowwHand]

On his best day, he couldn't trick me. Don't get your hopes up.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by b etor
That means absolutely nothing to me. Only juniors and seniors can take Statistics at my school.

That's okay. I wasn't really hoping to get the answer from you anyway

btw, | = given. Thus g(theta | X = x) is the probability that theta has a particular value given that some measurement X took the value x.

[SlowwHand]

Brush your hair b etor. I know that the concept he just explained sailed over your head with near g-force velocity.
Did I say I hate math yet? God, I hate math. It's like having a job where you're told every move to make. Absolutely no creativity allowed.

[KrazyHorse]

Re: statistics question

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What does X refer to? I've never encountered the symbol before.

Context: I'm supposed to find the posterior distribution of theta given X for a certain prior distribution of theta and the distribution of X.

If it's not < X > then I don't know, but if you can give the actual problem I might be able to figure it out from context.