w , x , y , z are chosen uniformly at random from [ 0 , 1 ] .
Find the probability that w 2 + x 2 + y 2 + z 2 < 1 to 3 decimal places.
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Just to let you guys know the probability after integrating comes out to be
It's possible to generalize this kind of probability problems using geometrical probability: if we have a 1 , a 2 , . . . a n uniformly chosen from [ 0 , b ] , the probability of S = i = 1 ∑ n a i 2 < b 2 is the probability that point P = ( a 1 , . . . , a n ) is inside the origin-centered n -dimensions sphere with radius b . We can express the value of this probability as
P ( P ⊂ S ) = b n 1 ∫ 0 b ∫ 0 s 2 ∫ 0 s 3 ⋯ ∫ 0 s n d a 1 d a 2 . . . d a n
where
s i = b 2 − k = 1 ∑ i − 1 a k 2 .
In our case n = 4 , b = 1 so
P ( P ⊂ S ) = ∫ 0 b ∫ 0 1 − a 1 2 ∫ 0 1 − a 1 2 − a 2 2 ∫ 0 1 − a 1 2 − a 2 2 − a 3 2 d a 1 d a 2 d a 3 d a 4 ≈ 0 . 3 0 8
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We will solve it using geometrical probability:
Our desired outcome lies in a sixteenth of a 4-dimensional sphere and all outcomes lie in a 4-dimensional cube so our probability is the hypervolume volume of the sphere over 16 times the hypervolume of the cube. Which is:
1 6 1 1 4 1 4 × 2 π 2 = 0 . 3 0 8
BTW The hypervolume of a 4D sphere with radius r is given by r 4 × 2 π 2 . I've derived this formula by realising that:
Where f n ( r ) is the hypervolume of an n-dimensional sphere with radius r .
f 0 ( 1 ) = 1 because 0-dimensional sphere has one point.