Consider a square of side length 1, centered on the origin in the plane. Suppose we think of the square as a collection of points in polar coordinates, with each point having a radius with respect to the origin, as well as an angle .
If points are chosen randomly and uniformly over the square's perimeter, what is the expected value of ?
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Since R is invariant under rotations about the origin, we may assume the sides of the square are parallel to the axes. Also, since the given square has 9 0 ∘ symmetry about the origin, we may simply find the expected value of R 2 about one of the sides.
Now note that one of the sides is parametrized by ( x , y ) = ( X , 2 1 ) , that the assumption that the point is chosen uniformly over the perimeter means X is uniformly distributed on [ − 2 1 , 2 1 ] , and that R 2 = X 2 + ( 2 1 ) 2 .
Together, this means the expected value of R 2 is just E [ R 2 ] = E [ X 2 ] + 4 1 = ∫ − 1 / 2 1 / 2 x 2 d x + 4 1 = 3 1 ≈ 0 . 3 3 3 3 3