Delete example Would it be appropriate to delete the example section at the bottom 06 52 22 Mar 2005 UTC I think so don t see what it adds 08 20 22 Mar 2005 UTC Yes Moreover it is not an example of random variable Its just a realization of random variable Hardly misleading 17 59 24 Mar 2005 UTC I thought this was very useful because it showed an example where the map was not the identity map I propose putting it back False statement A continuous random variable does not always have a density Preceding unsigned comment added by 194 4 140 135 Definition I do nt like the definition here not that I m letting my ignorance of stats stop me from commenting but could this be considered a clearer definition Random Variable The outcome of an experiment need not be a number for example the outcome when a coin is tossed can be heads or tails However we often want to represent outcomes as numbers A random variable is a function that associates a unique numerical value with every outcome of an experiment The value of the random variable will vary from trial to trial as the experiment is repeated There are two types of random variable discrete and continuous A random variable has either an associated probability distribution discrete random variable or probability density function continuous random variable I think this is definitely an improvement but it should be pointed out that there exists r v s which are neither discrete nor continuous for example take the sum of one r v of each type The current definition is bad in that it is neither clear to the lay reader nor specific to the technical reader The above definition is far better on both counts and so I will put it on the page BTW sorry about the no summary edit I hit the enter key accidentally Examples A coin is tossed ten times The random variable X is the number of tails that are noted X can only take the values 0 1 10 so X is a discrete random variable A light bulb is burned until it burns out The random variable Y is its lifetime in hours Y can take any positive real value so Y is a continuous random variable I think the above definition for the original reference pls search via google explains to me that it is a mapping between a value and the sequence number of that value rather like a numeric index to a database record This would appear to allow greater generalization in statistical definitions and algorithms The earler Wikiedia definition led me to comment on another Wikipedia definition incorrectly because I think I may have misunderstood the concept after looking at this Wikipedia definition A random variable is a function that assigns a numerical value to an event This example just assigns another event to an event Could we change it to something like Consider a game where if a 6 is rolled on a fair six sided die player 1 wins and otherwise player 2 wins Let X represent the number of times player 1 wins Then and or maybe include an example of a continuous random variable What do you think This section should begin with a sentence of the form A random variable is To avoid this is to show that you don