Art Kendall wrote:
>
> would someone name some physical or social phenomena where the measurements
> follow a Cauchy distribution?
>
Here's a fairly simple situation.
Join two laser pointers back to back, and mount them on
some freely rotating assembly (like a roulette wheel or
something similar). Nearby, have a *very* long wall, whose
closest point to the rotating assembly is the origin. Spin
the assembly. When it comes to rest, the point on the wall
illuminated by the laser should have a (horizontal) distance
from the origin that is pretty well modelled by a Cauchy.
(This picture should be viewed in a monospace font like courier
or it won't make much sense.)
O
...=========================... <- very long wall
.
.
// >
(//) <- rotating two-direction laser
< //
.
.
Glen
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