Two random points are uniformly chosen on the perimeter of a unit area square.
To 3 decimal places, find the
expected value
of the distance between these two points.
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There is a 4 1 chance that the points are on the same side, a 2 1 chance that they are on adjacent sides, and a 4 1 chance that they are on opposite sides.
Case 1 : The points are on the same side.
Let x be the distance from a vertex to the first point, and let y be the distance from the same vertex to the second point.
Then the expected value of the distance between the points is:
∫ 0 1 ∫ 0 1 ∣ y − x ∣ d y d x = 2 ∫ 0 1 ∫ 0 x ( y − x ) d y d x = 3 1
Case 2 : The points are on adjacent sides.
Let x be the distance from a vertex to the first point, and let y be the distance from the same vertex to the second point.
Then the expected value of the distance between the points is:
∫ 0 1 ∫ 0 1 x 2 + y 2 d y d x = 3 1 ( 2 + ln ( 1 + 2 ) )
Case 3 : The points are on opposite sides.
Let x be the distance from a vertex to the first point, and let y be the distance from the adjacent vertex to the second point.
Then the expected value of the distance between the points is:
∫ 0 1 ∫ 0 1 1 + ( y − x ) 2 d y d x = 3 2 − 2 + ln ( 1 + 2 )
Weighting each of these expected values by their respective probabilities gives an expected value of approximately 0 . 7 3 5 .