Expected number of uniformly random points in unit square is in convex position. If n points are uniformly generated in a unit square, following famous Erdős–Szekeres theorem. The probability of them be in convex position is (((2n-2),(n-1))//n!)^2

miniliv4

miniliv4

Answered question

2022-09-30

Expected number of uniformly random points in unit square is in convex position.
If n points are uniformly generated in a unit square, following famous Erdős–Szekeres theorem. The probability of them be in convex position is ( ( 2 n 2 n 1 ) / n ! ) 2
My interest is to find the expected number of points be in convex position, and I am enumerating i points in the convex position and add all the possible is.
Here is what I did, P ( i ) = ( ( 2 i 2 i 1 ) / i ! ) 2 , the probability of having i points in convex position.
And the expected number of points be in convex position can be achieved via i = 1 n ( n i ) P ( i )
And I was using WolframAlpha to get an idea of this number, for some reason the expected number is bigger than n, which is impossible
Can someone help me where did I do wrong?

Answer & Explanation

Samantha Braun

Samantha Braun

Beginner2022-10-01Added 9 answers

Step 1
You've computed the expected number of subsets of points in convex position. For example, when n 3 all 2 n 1 nonempty subsets are in convex position, so the sum equals 2 n 1
Let X be the maximum cardinality of all sets in convex position. By union bound on all sets of size k we have:
P ( X k ) ( n k ) ( 1 k ! ( 2 k 2 k 1 ) ) 2
Step 2
So we get an upper bound on the expectation of X:
E ( X ) = k = 1 n P ( X k ) k = 1 n min ( 1 , ( n k ) ( 1 k ! ( 2 k 2 k 1 ) ) 2 )
Getting a lower bound is more complicated, I think this upper bound should be reasonably tight. Why? Most of the sum on the right hand side comes from the terms which equal 1, the terms less than 1 decay rapidly. The expected number of sets of size k in convex position equals ( n k ) ( 1 k ! ( 2 k 2 k 1 ) ) 2 , so when this quantity is much bigger than 1, it's a reasonable to guess that X will be bigger than k with high probability.

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