Paper 3, Section II, J

Probability and Measure | Part II, 2012

Carefully state and prove the first and second Borel-Cantelli lemmas.

Now let (An:n∈N)\left(A_{n}: n \in \mathbb{N}\right) be a sequence of events that are pairwise independent; that is, P(An∩Am)=P(An)P(Am)\mathbb{P}\left(A_{n} \cap A_{m}\right)=\mathbb{P}\left(A_{n}\right) \mathbb{P}\left(A_{m}\right) whenever m≠nm \neq n. For N⩾1N \geqslant 1, let SN=∑n=1N1AnS_{N}=\sum_{n=1}^{N} 1_{A_{n}}. Show that Var⁡(SN)⩽E(SN)\operatorname{Var}\left(S_{N}\right) \leqslant \mathbb{E}\left(S_{N}\right).

Using Chebyshev's inequality or otherwise, deduce that if ∑n=1∞P(An)=∞\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \mathbb{P}\left(A_{n}\right)=\infty, then lim⁡N→∞SN=∞\lim _{N \rightarrow \infty} S_{N}=\infty almost surely. Conclude that P(An\mathbb{P}\left(A_{n}\right. infinitely often )=1.)=1 .

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