Bernoulli process

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Part of a series on statistics
Probability theory
Probability Axioms Determinism System Indeterminism Randomness
Probability space Sample space Event Collectively exhaustive events Elementary event Mutual exclusivity Outcome Singleton Experiment Bernoulli trial Probability distribution Bernoulli distribution Binomial distribution Exponential distribution Normal distribution Pareto distribution Poisson distribution Probability measure Random variable Bernoulli process Continuous or discrete Expected value Variance Markov chain Observed value Random walk Stochastic process
Complementary event Joint probability Marginal probability Conditional probability
Independence Conditional independence Law of total probability Law of large numbers Bayes' theorem Boole's inequality
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In probability and statistics, a Bernoulli process (named after Jacob Bernoulli) is a finite or infinite sequence of binary random variables, so it is a discrete-time stochastic process that takes only two values, canonically 0 and 1. The component Bernoulli variables X_i are identically distributed and independent. Prosaically, a Bernoulli process is a repeated coin flipping, possibly with an unfair coin (but with consistent unfairness). Every variable X_i in the sequence is associated with a Bernoulli trial or experiment. They all have the same Bernoulli distribution. Much of what can be said about the Bernoulli process can also be generalized to more than two outcomes (such as the process for a six-sided die); this generalization is known as the Bernoulli scheme.

The problem of determining the process, given only a limited sample of Bernoulli trials, may be called the problem of checking whether a coin is fair.