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Popoviciu's inequality on variances

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In probability theory, Popoviciu's inequality, named after Tiberiu Popoviciu, is an upper bound on the variance of any bounded probability distribution. Let M and m be upper and lower bounds on the values of any random variable with a particular probability distribution. Then Popoviciu's inequality states:

variance 1 4 ( M m ) 2 .

Sharma et al. have proved an improvement of the Popoviciu's inequality that says that:

variance + ( Third central moment 2 variance ) 2 1 4 ( M m ) 2 .

Equality holds precisely when half of the probability is concentrated at each of the two bounds.

Popoviciu's inequality is weaker than the Bhatia–Davis inequality.

References

Popoviciu's inequality on variances Wikipedia