Webinar: Jeff Steif (Chalmers & GU) November 29

The second webinar of the Fall term is given by

• When: November 29, 2021, 11.00 – 12.00
• Where: Zoom https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/61434877302
• Titel: Where to stand when playing darts?
• Abstract: We study a fairly simple probabilistic model for playing darts where the location of where we hit the target, viewed as a point in R^n is governed by a specified random vector, assuming we aim at the origin and stand one unit away from the target. There is also a payoff function on the target and we want to aim (which corresponds to translating the random vector) on order to maximize our expected payoff.
  Question: If we are allowed to move closer to the target (which corresponds to scaling the distribution), is it always better to do that?
  The surprising answer is no for certain distributions (such as the uniform distribution) but it is true for certain families of distributions including stable distributions and what are called selfdecomposable distributions which had already been studied by Paul Levy in the 1940’s.
  
  This is joint work with Björn Franzen and Johan Wästlund.
  
  Some basic knowledge in probability will be assumed but I will certainly not assume that people know what a stable distribution or a selfdecomposable distribution is.

Welcome!