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| a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes. |
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
| random walk | |
| —n | |
| 1. | a mathematical model used to describe physical processes, such as diffusion, in which a particle moves in straight-line steps of constant length but random direction |
| 2. | statistics a route consisting of successive and connected steps in which each step is chosen by a random mechanism uninfluenced by any previous step |
random walk
in probability theory, a process for determining the probable location of a point subject to random motions, given the probabilities (the same at each step) of moving some distance in some direction. Random walks are an example of Markov processes, in which future behaviour is independent of past history. A typical example is the drunkard's walk, in which a point beginning at the origin of the Euclidean plane moves a distance of one unit for each unit of time, the direction of motion, however, being random at each step. The problem is to find, after some fixed time, the probability distribution function of the distance of the point from the origin. Many economists believe that stock market fluctuations, at least over the short run, are random walks.
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