{"paper":{"title":"(Very) short proof of Rayleigh's Theorem (and extensions)","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["math.PR"],"primary_cat":"math.CO","authors_text":"Olivier Bernardi (MIT)","submitted_at":"2010-07-28T04:29:33Z","abstract_excerpt":"Consider a walk in the plane made of $n$ unit steps, with directions chosen independently and uniformly at random at each step. Rayleigh's theorem asserts that the probability for such a walk to end at a distance less than 1 from its starting point is $1/(n+1)$. We give an elementary proof of this result. We also prove the following generalization valid for any probability distribution $\\mu$ on the positive real numbers: if two walkers start at the same point and make respectively $m$ and $n$ independent steps with uniformly random directions and with lengths chosen according to $\\mu$, then th"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1007.4870","kind":"arxiv","version":3},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}