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Exercise 1.21 (Counterexample to the relaxed Borel-Cantelli lemma)

Let p1,p2,⋯ ∈ [0,1] be a sequence such that ∑ ⁡ n=1∞pn = +∞. Show that there exist a sequence of events E1,E2,… modeled by some probability space Ω, such that P(En) = pn for all n, and such that almost surely infinitely many of the En occur. Thus we see that the hypothesis ∑ ⁡ n=1∞P(En) < ∞ in the Borel-Cantelli lemma cannot be relaxed.

Answers

Consider ([0,1],B,m) and the sequence ([0,pn])n∈ℕ. Since we have infinitely many pn > 0 we must as well have infinitely many non-null sets [0,pn].

Also see part 2 of this exercise.

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2021-09-02 00:00
Comments
  • This won't work either. Consider $p_n := 1/n$ for all $n$.
    isn • 2023-08-23